I haven't slept outside yet: always at an inn. I suppose that's worth a try.

I haven't looked at any of the game editor's yet. Would they cover something as specific as an "allow travel to De'Arnise Hold" flag?

theoreticaly there should be a flag in the save game that controls this, but as to where it would be or whether ShadowKeeper could edit it i have no idea.

on a more positive note, the CLUAConsole can warp you to any area in the game. since i dont have the area code, nor can i remember the exact method to enable it, i would ask somebody more knowledgable with cheats to post that information. or you could go to one of the numerous cheat web sites and look it up in there.

I'm in!

I ran a few more local quests and went back to the city gates and was finally able to depart from there. I wasn't able to depart from anywhere else in the city.

Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions!
-Colin.

No problem, glad you made it.