Travel within the Space-Time Vortex is the second stage of space-time travel. While within the Vortex the TARDIS operates in Walrus Mode. This keeps the pranantic waveform properly antifrated. The Spatial Drive will activate automatically when a TARDIS has entered the Vortex. The Wormhole Generator and Stabilizing Devices will induce, generate, and control the wormhole that a TARDIS travels through in the Vortex. The Light Speed Overdrive is an essential component of the Wormhole Generator and thus is vital to Vortex Travel. Two crystalline jewels are necessary of the continued operation of the hyperbolic laser drive. In an emergency the Overdrive can be patched into a radio transmitter to send radio signals to anywhere in the universe.

The Dynamorphic Generators use revolution-induced gravity to convert the Artron Energy into Orbital Energy. This energy takes the form of energetic Muons, which provide counter-magnetization Thrust for travel in the Space-Time Vortex. The thrust is controlled by the Velocity Override which regulates and modulates the Time Rotor using a form of Block Transfer math known as Forced-Matter Calculations.

A TARDIS leaves temporary wakes and time ripples in the Vortex. To ensure safe travel the TARDIS uses the helmic regulator to set up the proper Boolean constraints to regulate the Planck-Collapse within the Vortex, and stabilizes the chronon beam to avoid complete overload of the Time Spiral's polyhelixes on the macrotransablative level.

In theory once the coordinates and course are programmed in, a TARDIS will travel to its destination and materialize automatically. And if the Logical and Physical mapping techniques described in Stages 11-275 have been understood and implemented, i-o ambiguities should not normally create difficulties at this stage. In practice Time Lord supervision is sometimes necessary to avoid dangers in the Space-Time Vortex. can be prevented using the Anti-Collision Control. The anti-collision device is part of the H.A.D.S. and uses a coordinate override to change location. A level five alarm indicates a temporal collision has in fact occurred. Turbulence while in the Vortex is most often caused by altering the settings of the dimensional stabilizers, a malfunction in the relative drift compensator, or by feedback from the solar comparator. Another danger involves the relativity circuit of the temporal balancing governor. If the default temporal recursion algorithms of this circuit and the back-up circuits are disrupted the TARDIS will accelerate backwards in time at a tremendous rate. The TARDIS must be brought under control using the velocity override before the speed exceeds six and a half googol years per metasecond or the ship will collide with Event 0 and be destroyed. Most (if not all) TARDISes prefer the environment of the Vortex to that of Normal Space. However TARDISes have Curiosity Circuits. Without these circuits a TARDIS would never leave the Vortex.

The vortex wormhole can be displayed on the scanner. A red tint is used for traveling forwards in time and a blue tint indicates travel into the relative past. While a TARDIS's transportation of its crew through time and space is usually described as a "Journey" it is just as accurate to say that a TARDIS actually works by recording is crew's biodata and reprocessing/manipulating their future to take into account a different location in space and time. While traveling in the Vortex the TARDIS always has a faint vibration, which vanishes when the ship materializes. During Vortex travel Time Lords are vulnerable to Temporal Shift Lag due to having 22 different types of temporal senses. Such effects can only be overcome if the Time Lord develops special mental disciplines. Temporal Shift Lag doesn't affect crewmembers who don't have Symbiotic Nuclei.