I usually thoroughly explore my starting island and find a nice spot to start a main home base and start levelling up there. Portals are constructed ASAP and a smaller base is made in the Black Forest. These two bases are my mains until I hit the power levels to attack the Plains and then I build an endgame base on a cross section of meadows/black forest/plains for easy farming and staying relatively unmolested by bigger mobs. Generally scouting for new ground is done by ocean; we circle islands and then work our way inwards, farming as we go.