I've been traveling with Uthgerd.

After clearing a fort, I noticed she was missing.

I decided to try a nearby cave as I've noticed that missing followers usually reappeared after entering this type of location.

She didn't show up.

After clearing the cave, I went to an inn and slept. Still no Uthgerd.

I ran back to Whiterun and went to her house and slept. Still no sign of her.

Went up to the palace to do some enchanting and while there asked Lydia to join me.

Lydia told me that it looked like I already had someone with me.

So I left Whiterun and went a little bit down the road, then fast traveled back to Whiterun.

Lo and behold, there's Uthgerd right behind me.

On a previous character, I had followers go awol on multiple occasions, after which I'd fast travel to where I'd met them and there they were.

I never noticed this lengthy disappearance of followers on the first couple of characters I played. However, I fast traveled quite a bit with those characters.

The last couple of characters hadn't fast traveled at all and this was when I started to notice the followers going awol and never reappearing ... until I fast traveled.

The only other difference I can think of is that I started the "no fast travel" characters after the 1.4 patch, so don't know whether the awol follower thing has always been there and I just didn't notice because I was fast traveling with earlier characters or if this is just something that came up after the patch.

I play on XBox so don't have console commands available for these awol follower situations.

Any thoughts?

One way to get the follower back to their original spot (i.e., where you recruited them) is by waiting a few days until they get tired of waiting and go home. Only way I can think of solving this problem on a console.

Your followers will walk home. So, if you're in Solitude and they have to walk to Riften/Whiterun, it will take them a while.

Followers will not "jump", even off a six inch curb. They will walk all the way around a mountain to avoid having to jump down a small cliff. You have to account for their movement restrictions or they will get "lost". They find their way back to you, or head home eventually.

I understand what everyone is saying in the previous posts.

In the example I mentioned, I was overburdened overburdened when I left the cave and too greedy to drop anything.

So, after sleeping for a night in Rorikstead, I walked ... and I mean overburdened very slow walk ... back to Whiterun where I again slept the night.

So even if the follower walked back as well ... and I certainly wasn't taking any short cuts ... I would have expected to see her at some point before I decided on a hunch to try running a few hundred yards out of Whiterun and fast traveling back.

Just struck me as odd that the fast travel seemed to resolve the awol follower situation.

This is one reason why I hate traveling with followers.

Normally, I can run, jump and take whatever path I feel like towards my destination, but with a follower, I'm mostly stuck traveling by the roads or my follower will get stuck.

It would be nice of there was some kind of "hold hand" option to keep them from getting stuck or taking the long way around somewhere because they can't jump over a twig.

When sneaking around in dungeons, where I'd like the follower to keep their distance, is when they like to stay close, often bumping into and pushing my character.