As of Emacs 24.3, an analog of the old multi: syntax has been layered on top of the modern tramp-default-proxies-alist approach, meaning that you can once again perform multi-hops without any prior configuration. For details, see: C-hig (tramp)Ad-hoc multi-hops RET With the new syntax, each 'hop' is separated by |. The example in the manual is: C-xC-f /ssh:bird@bastion|ssh:you@remotehost:/path RET