First of all, chop down some pine trees for core wood, which will enable you to craft Stagbreaker, and area damage weapon that will be useful in clearing crypts.
Then start looking for burial crypts. There you can find Surtling Cores which you will need to smelt metals, bone fragments for upgrades as well as valuables that you will be able use at the merchant.
Inside the crypts there are skeletons who are weak to blunt damage. Unupgraded club is weak so flint axe might be still preferred however if you are fighting several enemies, consider using Stagbreaker.
While running around in the Forest you will likely come across Trolls. Kill them as their leather can be used to craft better armor. trolls are weak to pierce damage so use bow or spear against them. I would not recommend fighting them in melee range until you get better equipment though as you will need at the least bronze buckler to parry a hit from a troll.
Also make sure to pick up any carrot seeds and thistle while there. You will need them.
Once you got your smelter and charcoal kiln, it is time to find some metal. You will need copper and tin to make bronze. Tin looks like a small wet rock and is found on shorelines, while Copper looks liek a large green rock and is found on hills (they can be hard to distinguish from regular large rocks so be prepared to be disappointed a few times before you find an actual copper deposit)
iMPORTANT: the copper deposit is much larger than it looks as most of it is underound so be prepared to dig it out. Here is a trick: if you ding a hole under the copper you can get sheltered which allows you to place a workbench for repairs and a campfire for the rested bonus. It also makes it harder for enemies to get to you so you can mine mostly unbothered and you wont have to run back to the home base , you can just keep mining all night.