How to Get to the Dragon Isles

Author: Luxrah
Date: March 30, 2023
Updated: February 26, 2025
Expansion: World of Warcraft

Dragonflight is the 9th expansion for World of Warcraft, and most of its content is located on the Dragon Isles continent. As of the arrival of The War Within pre-expansion patch, Dragonflight content is now the default leveling path for new characters.

Getting to the Dragon Isles is a simple matter of hopping on a boat or zeppelin, but you may want to start the Dragonflight campaign before you go. We’ll start this guide with the introductory questline. If you just want to find the quickest transportation to the Dragon Isles, you can skip to the last section, “Portals and Transports to the Dragon Isles.”

For more Dragon Isles guides, check out How to Unlock World Quests in Dragonflight, How to Get to the Forbidden Reach, How to Get to Zaralek Cavern, and How to Get to the Emerald Dream, which will walk you through the main quest campaign for Dragonflight.

Starting the Dragonflight Story

This introductory series of quests will take you through a few quests in Stormwind before shipping you off to the Dragon Isles.

waking shores boat to stormwind — The Alliance dock in The Waking Shores

This introductory series of quests will take you through a few quests in Orgrimmar before shipping you off to the Dragon Isles.

waking shores zeppelin to orgrimmar — The Horde dock in The Waking Shores

How to Get to Valdrakken

Getting to Valdrakken for the first time requires a bit of running around. The easiest way to get there is to have a mage create a portal for you. You can also fly there as soon as you unlock Dragonriding.

If you want to unlock the portal between Valdrakken and your faction’s capital city, you will need to continue through the main story quests on the Dragon Isles until they take you to the city. That means completing the main story quests in The Waking Shores, Ohn’ahran Plains, and The Azure Span until you get the first quest of the Thaldraszus campaign, To Valdrakken.

dragon isles valdrakken — The city of Valdrakken

Portals and Transports to the Dragon Isles

There are a few different ways to get back and forth to the Dragon Isles.

Mages can create a portal for their party members with Portal: Valdrakken.

For personal use, they also have Teleport: Valdrakken.

There is a portal to Valdrakken in the Stormwind Portal Room. To use this portal, you need to have completed the quest To Valdrakken.

stormwind wizards sanctum valdrakken — The portal to Valdrakken in Stormwind

There is a portal to Valdrakken in the Orgrimmar Portal Room. To use this portal, you need to have completed the quest To Valdrakken.

orgrimmar pathfinders den valdrakken portal — The portal to Valdrakken in Orgrimmar

The Rugged Dragonscale will take you to The Waking Shores from the southernmost dock of the Stormwind Harbor. Speak to Chrovo at the end of the dock to find out how long the wait will be.

The boat docks about every five minutes. It docks in the same place as the boat to Boralus. The Dragon Isles boat has dracthyr on board, whereas the Boralus boat is crewed entirely by kul tiran humans.

stormwind boat the waking shores — The boat to The Waking Shores in Stormwind Harbor

The Defiant Dragonscale will take you to The Waking Shores from the zeppelin tower just south of Orgrimmar, near the coast. Speak to Skarukaru at the end of the dock to find out how long the wait will be.

The zeppelin docks about every five minutes.

orgrimmar zeppelin dragon isles — The zeppelin to The Waking Shores outside Orgrimmar

About the Author

Luxrah

I've been playing World of Warcraft on and off since vanilla, usually as a healer or caster and often as a guild leader. I play both retail and classic. I also love RPGs, sandboxes, and sims.