# Portal A **portal** is an entity that allows instant travel to and from the town in the act where it is created or the previous town if the current town is unvisited. The standard blue portal appearance can be changed by purchasing a Portal Effect. ## Portals created by players Player-created portals can be used to travel to town unlimited times by any party members. However, it will disappear once the creator uses it from the town-side. Other party members can use the town-side portal unlimited times. Portals will automatically disappear after the instance they are linked to has expired. The expiration time for instances is 8 minutes for normal instances and 15 minutes for "hub" instances (instances that lead to more than one instance, eg. Mud Flats which leads to Fetid Pool and Submerged Passage). A portal will not expire as long as the instance it is linked to is prevented from expiring (eg. a player stays in it). ## Portals created by a Map Device Portals work differently when created by a Map Device and the corresponding portal inside the map. See Map Device for more information.