The normal travel allows you to visit a location which is adjacent to your present location, and fast travel allows you to travel 2 locations away from your present location, but then you have to deal with a foul fate. At least it should work like that if there are no bugs in there.
I don't know why the game didn't allow you to travel further, we only experienced similar in only one case, when somebody wanted to combine travelling on water and land with fast travel, that wasn't allowed (I don't know if that's intended).