Medici is massive—and in Just Cause 3, getting from one end of this chaotic paradise to the other isn’t just about wingsuits and grapple hooks. Fast travel becomes an essential tool to help you navigate the sprawling map efficiently. However, the game doesn’t make the system obvious, and unlocking it takes more than just discovering locations. Here’s your complete breakdown of how to activate and use fast travel, especially useful for newcomers who just jumped in.

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Step One: Complete ‘Terrible Reaction’ Mission

Before you can even think about fast travel, you need to progress through the early stages of the main story. Specifically, you must complete a mission called Terrible Reaction. This is one of the first few missions—likely the fourth or fifth depending on your path. The mission doesn’t go smoothly in the story, but once it’s done, it opens up new gameplay functions including fast travel access.

Step Two: Finish ‘Friends Like These’

Once you’ve wrapped up Terrible Reaction, your next goal is a mission titled Friends Like These. It’s located on a new island that becomes accessible post-reaction. This quest is very light on action and heavy on dialogue. Your only real task is to move a boat off a beach—a simple objective that unlocks a major quality-of-life feature. Once completed, fast travel becomes part of your toolkit.

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How Fast Travel Works in Just Cause 3

Now that fast travel is unlocked, let’s talk about how it actually functions. Unlike most games where unlocked locations are simply available forever, Just Cause 3 has a unique system involving flares. Each flare acts as a fast travel charge.

• Initial Limitations: You start the game only being able to carry one flare.
• Upgrade Through Gear Mods: As you progress and upgrade your gear mods, your flare-carrying capacity will increase, allowing more frequent fast travel.

The developers clearly wanted to balance Rico’s freedom with some limitations to keep traversal meaningful early on.

Infinite Fast Travel to Shrines

Here’s where things get interesting: once you find a Shrine in a specific region, you gain infinite fast travel access to that region’s shrine. This effectively removes the need to spend flares when teleporting there. There are approximately 18 shrines across the world of Medici, and you don’t need to find them all—just one per region grants that free travel perk.

So, if you’re aiming to eliminate flare consumption altogether, prioritize finding shrines. Once you have one in each area, the entire map becomes a free teleportation playground.

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Practical Use: How to Fast Travel

Once you’ve completed the required missions and want to fast travel, open your map and highlight the desired destination. You’ll see the option to “Place Waypoint” or “Fast Travel.”

• Choose Fast Travel and confirm the use of a flare (unless you’re traveling to a shrine).
• The sequence will drop Rico from an airplane over your destination—stylish and practical.

It’s similar to other open-world games with unlockable travel points, but the inclusion of flares adds a tactical layer. Do you use your flare now, or save it for a longer haul later?

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A Bit of Humor and Visual Flair

The commentary accompanying this guide includes a funny moment where a player tethered a boat as part of the ‘Friends Like These’ mission, forgot the tether was still attached, and ended up dragging the boat (and the poor guy in it) underwater. Despite this mishap, the mission still completed, and it showcased just how flexible (and glitch-tolerant) Just Cause 3 can be.

And speaking of visuals, underwater graphics are surprisingly excellent, especially on console. The reflections, water clarity, and light play look amazing on PS4—and presumably even better on PC at ultra settings. It’s a small but appreciated detail that highlights Avalanche Studios’ attention to world-building.

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Final Thoughts

Unlocking fast travel in Just Cause 3 is essential, especially given the map’s size. But the process is a little hidden behind early missions and some unique mechanics. Now that you know the steps—complete Terrible Reaction, follow up with Friends Like These, understand flare usage, and prioritize shrine discovery—you’ll be zipping across Medici in no time.

And if all else fails, just don’t forget to untether your boats. Your passengers will thank you.

Article based on gameplay experience and commentary by What’s My Game.