Boat rides that can have monsters spawn capable of killing high lvl players so we can watch all the bodies get tossed off when it docks lol.

Also FFXI's main city airship travel was better than FFXIV's IMO because of the way you got to essentially see the world from high in the sky as it travelled. Though FFXI's airships were also a whole lot bigger.

Honestly I feel like just about every open world game made in more recent years has drastically overused fast travel systems.