I think you need to be a 14 year veteran to get a shield, lock the shield in your house, and each month to the date you locked it I think you will get a token. These cannot be used by anyone else other than the original owner they were issued to. If you are able to get them or if you have the shields, you need a minimum of two. One to go to the shard you are going to, and the one to go back to the shard you came from presumably, that last one should be in your bank box for safety and it will be there when you get to your destination, so that you can use it to get back.
Also if you decide to travel to say Baja and back to home, make sure you put some gold in the TRANSFER account while at home, if you want to buy stuff while in Baja. (Or else youll get there and you will have no gold at Baja).
If you are NOT a 14 year old paid account (168 months), all the above does not apply, and you will not be able to get one till that time exactly as far as I understand. This is for the Vet Shields.
If you are NOT a 14 year vet and If you still want to xfer: The only way is to pay UO for a xfer TOKEN. That one you can use to xfer anywhere in prodo shards, THEN you can get all your stuff on pack mules etc, etc.
Not sure bout the price, but you can check it on the EA store.(Maybe $20? not too sure, still not too much).
Paying to the UO/EA $20 to xfer where your friends/relatives maybe, is extremely well worth it still, if you consider the amount of time that will take you to re-create these characters, skill them and equip them. This is likely 1-2 hours worth of pay at most, will save you 50-100 hours easily building chars skilling and equipping them there etc, PLUS it helps UO survive a little bit more, it needs that $.
Not an expert in Xfer shields, but I just wanted to help you with this info. Good luck Mary.