Where to go on the map?

[Your English Teacher]

Is exploration mostly trial an error? I went up to the bee person in the northeast first, but I can't make any of the stuff from there because mats. I tried to get to he other person on the southwest side, but I can't seem to get there without dying. Can't quite figure out difficulty areas on the map. Thanks!

[Kaya]

Every NPC you talk to will send you to the next one, the objectives are listed in the codex (edit: or compendium, I always mix those up...). If places are hard to get to, you can often make a building to get there, like stairs ,"bridges" to cross the river etc. From reading your other post looks like you made it to Kalev.

The first biome you spawn in is basically the easiest, at the beginning it´s a good idea to avoid a lot of the insects though, and it is possible to sneak past them (run when they´re not looking). Make sure to have healing wraps on your hotbar, and more in your inventory :P

Here´s a guide, might be outdated in some regards though.
https://kianl.com/articles/smalland-survive-the-wilds-beginners-guide.html

[Your English Teacher]

Never thought of building over rivers! Can you build anywhere in the game? I guess I got used to building in tree tops too quickly. :)

[Gex]

There are some limits to where you can build, like you can't build in water or if you near water, you can't have a ladder or something that going into the ground as if there is water there too.

That said, you can build anywhere, just I wouldn't recommend building near a critter spawn hole or critter pathing area....otherwise they will attack it.

I've built bases all over the map for the area that I'm in. I've built bridges over water, stair systems that allows travel up and down cliffs to the beach and tree pathing in the ruin areas to go from base to boss without stepping on the ground or fighting a creature.

[Gex]

Like Kaya said, talking to the NPC will direct you to bosses and ultimately new biome resources.