Exploring Azeroth the first time round

Learning the geography of Azeroth reminds a little of being in primary school and memorizing the names of countries and their capitals from a world map. As in real life, certain places are easier to reach than others, some are safer whilst others are prettier. I dislike running in Azeroth as I'm sure everybody does. It's tedious and time-consuming with no benefit other than reaching your destination. I think the travelling component inherent to questing is particularly why I dislike quests. It always feels as if most of the time is spent running to the quest giver, then running to the quest location and then running back to the quest giver. My way of questing is to pick up quests where I pass them and if I happen to kill the monsters or reach the location per chance, I'll finish it up. I only hand in quests when I happen to pass the quest giver on other business in the future.

I feel the same way about exploring. It's just pointless and seemingly endless to run from one area to another. The best way of exploring for me is to simply wander from one area to the next, usually in search of something. Wandering is fun. No running involved. My wandering is guided by profession ingredients. I am always on the lookout for good fishing spots, easy to cook recipes, easy to gather ingredients for cooking recipes, humanoids who drop cloth, monsters for skinning, herbs for gathering and ores to mine.

I tend to solo and generally stick to areas with monsters and humanoids that are my level plus or minus one or two levels. It's a good principle, but often difficult to employ when you do not know the geography. Where do I find level 18 - 23 monsters? Or 34 - 38? It's usually a matter of finding sub-regions within regions and I'm learning how to explore rather than research.

First find the appropriate region and sub-zones are usually arranged according to the surrounding area. Where a level 20-30 area meets a level 10 - 20, the monsters in the border region is usually level 18 - 22. Similarly, where a level 20 - 30 area meets a level 30 - 40 area, the border region is usually made up of level 28 - 32's. The regions surrounding the villages and towns tend to be lower level spiralling upwards the further you move away from the town and similar with roads to some extent. Look at a map, find the borders, find the towns, find the roads and it's pretty easy to guess where which level of monster will be in subregions.

I dislike trawling through material as much as I dislike running from point A to B. With a little guess work, I really need not bother with either. I can simply wander from one sub-region to the next and gather what I need as I go along. The perfect life most definitely.