I love the fast travel feature. When I'm done with a dungeon/whatever I don't want to have to haul all that gear cross-country and likely get killed in the process of doing it. Also, when I'm done with the mission I'm usually about one pound of carry weight away from max. This means that I'll either have to drop something if I find something else; and that usually results in having to do the math to figure out if I'll save about 8 bucks in order to keep the new thing.

But mainly it has to do with urgency. If I'm hot on a quest, I want to doing the quest; not wandering around catching butterfiles--which I will absolutely end up doing if I see them. I have better things to do! For example, during the Thieves Guild quests you must go from Riften to Snowsomething, which is up by Winterhold; then back to Riften, then to Markarth, and then back to Riften. That's a helluva lot of distance to travel by foot and about 15 pounds worth of butterflies, vegetation,fungus, and troll fat; not to mention the depletion of health potions that I'll have to buy or replace by sidetracking to some town that I'll hopefully be able to find an alchemy table in.

On another note regarding urgency, I have about 3 weeks left to play this game. Come February I won't have the time (at least not responsibly) to sit down and immerse myself in any kind of leisure time. So I have to do the most interesting stuff first. I did play the lottery today so maybe I will have the time. Uh-huh. I'm sure that'll happen.

I'm a god-like vampire who doesn't require any sleep and can magically transport anywhere in the world as long as it's marked on my map. For some strang reason I can't seem to do this when enemy's are near by and I even see text that says that in the upper left corner of where ever I'm looking. Being a vampire is weird.

much respect to the non fast travelers, dont know how ya do it. Im all for beautiful sceneary but damn!...thats alot of walking...

It's a different mindset. I can't imagine "warping" all over the map. I did that in Oblivion and it ruined that game for me. Turned Cyrodiil from a province into stargate.

I'm actually doing it both ways. My most recent character is the non-FT one, but the one before that is FT all the way. Zip zip zip, all over the map. I will continue to play her that way, and mostly avoid FT with the other one. Makes for two very different games. Both fun, of course.

I've developed a loose distance rule with FT-back-to-base after a dungeon crawl. If it's not too far, and there's not likely to be much in the way of encounters, I'll FT. If it's farther (with no set definition of "farther"), I'll walk. So I FT'ed back to the College from Saarthal, but walked most of the way back to Windhelm from Stoney Creek Cave (which is almost closer to Riften). Then I FT'ed back into Windhelm once the city was in sight. I'll do things like FT from within a city to the keep, just to speed that up, depending on my mood. It's out in the wilderness, where all sorts of things could happen, or there can be paths to discover and follow, that I like to walk.

Nice work OP, that is quite an accomplishement and I applaud your level of discipline, that is impressive. I am currently working on a similar paly through, with my own rules imposed. If anyone is interested in upping the difficulty a bit give this a try:

At the begining of the game pick 6 skills (only one may be a crafting skill) and then only allow yourself to perk these skills
To limit your income only loot gold and usable items off of the dead along with only taking magical weapons or armour (I also allow my self to take item upgrades, as long as it is an item I will use)
make sure to sleep or wait (I consider this camping) at least 6 - 8 hours a night. Make sure to eat 2 - 3 meals a day.
Try to never go beyond steel weapons or armor (I also do this because my character is a Nord, and there is nothing better than Nord Steel)
No fast traveling (although carriages are allowed in my game)

So far doing this I have made it to level 12 and counting, I have not tried a dead is dead game yet, but if I did that I am not sure I would ever get the game finished (extreme props to those of you who can play this way though)

well, i did find a lot more bears to kill, and i agree with you that exploring skyrim seems to be more fun than doing the tedious quest in skyrim.