I think people would not fast travel if there were more interesting things happening on the road.

One time I saw an ancient vampire taking on 2 knights of stendarr. Things like that are interesting.

I only use the carriage system in game, otherwise I don't use fast travel. I've mods installed though that make travelling a bit more interesting. In my opinion travelling is part of the journey, and I don't want to skip it too much. A hero doesn't skip things. I'm patient and have no hurry to finish the game.

I love adventuring and getting lost in the game. When I don't know where I am I roleplay that I've to find someone who can show me where I am on my map before I can look at it again. I've Compass on my screen, but completely without markers (possible on PC only). It's especially fun to get lost when the weather suddenly gets very bad (this too is only possible with mods). Walking in almost complete darkness and heavy rain trying to find the right path. It's atmospheric.

Edit:
Example screenshot: http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/ActionDragon/Skyrim/Fish-Breath/Fish-Breath69.jpg

I'm 50/50 on it. If I'm moving stuff around my houses or are relatively near to the city I'm going to I'll fast travel, otherwise mods just make the game look to damn good to miss. That's not on my hardcoe character though, who never fast travels.

I used to fast travel. Then I took an a... oh, **** it.

I do usually fast travel, but I've been thinking about doing it less to see more of the landscape. While it adds to realism, I'm afraid I would easily get bored just by walking back and forth between the cities. I might try to limit fast travel, but I don't think I'll ever quit it altogether.

It's the opposite, really. Any change is for the worse. Someone using fast travel does everything you do and has exactly the same experiences. He runs into a husband and wife along the road and gets thanked for helping them out. He saves a peddler from bandits, or helps kill him. He skirts cave bears and sabre cats, and runs for his life, or fights, or dies. He learns what ruins and caves and passes are where, and what guards them, and where the sun rises and sets. He learns where streams begin, in which direction they flow, and where they end. He gets to know the pools and the hills and the fallen trees that tell him he is nearing his goal. Avoiding fast travel gains you nothing he doesn't already have. Using it gives him a brief respite when he is ready for something else.

Despite all the annoying things about this game, the environment is WAY too breathtaking and beautiful to be fast-traveling.

In this respect, fast travel could be viewed as a commercial break in a favorite show. Interesting.

I usually fast travel when I feel like it, but there are many times I simply don't do it and walk the roads of Skyrim, from cities to towns to dungeons. It makes things much more interesting.

I limit fast travel as much as I can, but I don't avoid it totally. For example, doing those "jobs" for the Thieves Guild can get annoying: "Go to Markarth, fetch this model ship, come back to Riften. Go to Solitude, pickpocket that dude, come back to Riften". It's a bit too much for me.

But yeah, I agree with the general idea.

I'm not talking about the people who only use fast-travel every now and then. I'm talking about the ones who deliberately beam themselves from location to location just to finish questlines as quickly as possible, with little or no interest in the world around them.

People like that miss out on a lot of exploration, feel like they're in a game that needs to be completed rather than an immersive and believable fantasy world to live in, and get a very rushed sense of progression through questlines. A lot of the time, such people become fed up with the game within the first 100 hours. Essentially, they treat TES games like story-driven action-adventure games with pretty scenery. They then often moan about the poor storyline and lack of things to do.

The whole experience feels so much more fleshed out and real when you don't fast-travel. Instead of playing a 100 hour story-driven action-RPG, you're playing an 800 hour open world RPG.

I never fast travel and barely use the cariages anymore but i did increase the price of them to 500 gold and disabled fast travel via a mod just to make sure i dont