Oblivion introducing risk free point and click fast travel at the beginning of the game right as you leave the sewer was a huge mistake imo. I much prefer an organic approach to travel.
But what is an organic approach? I suppose this is debatable and you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask, but for me it's all about using in-game resources to travel in a way that actually makes sense in the context of the game world. Gothic, for example, doesn't have any fast travel system because it's a small enough world to traverse on your own via walking, at your own risk of course. Morrowind, on the other hand, had fairly large map for the time, but coupled with the slow walking speed made travelling around a pain in the ass in the beginning. So we have the Silt Striders - a good way of tying player traversal systems to game lore which gives a much needed sense of immersion and believably to the game world compared to simply clicking an arbitrary dot on a map in the middle of nowhere, while at the same time not diminishing the sense of exploration entirely because the Strider locations are limited to the major cities only. I know there's a ton of people who don't dig the lore explanations for gameplay phenomena in games and just want to play, and I totally get that, but for me I love when devs try and make a believable ecosystem the player has to interact with.
So which method is better? In my view, Morrowind's system is still the best in-terms of balancing convenience for the player and keeping a sense adventure; you're never too far away from a fast travel spot, but it's not the end-all solution either because it only takes you to major hubs. If your game world is small enough you can easily get away with having no fast travel system all, like in the case of Gothic.
