I tend to love the exploration, so i often end up exploring my entire starting continent on foot (unless it's absolutely massive, i have gotten some big enough to start bumping into biomes no newbie in rags still should even be seeing in the distance). I stock up on fire arrows early (wooden arrows are great for shooting birds for the feathers) and spend most of my starting exploration in black forest because I adore the troll armor and tend to keep that into swamps, just skip leather and bronze entirely. As I go i mark crypts and copper nodes for later, and take over some towers and troll caves (the trolls inside wont respawn and you can toss a fire down inside for a nice safe rest area on your journeys, dungeons can do it to but not all dungeons have safe first chambers and sometimes they smoke you out to. The entrances of both also provide shelter, and can have crafting benches, but also may see enemies).

If i do have to leave the starting continent for something early on, i do try to at least wait until i can make the karve. Even if i dont have the pick, i already love pestering trolls and they aren't opposed to helping you mine (especially the log troll, but the regular one can still do it)....or chop fine wood for that matter, so all i really need is preferably 9 cores, but as little as 5. 5 are needed for kiln/smelter but you can also switch between those two as you need, the other 4 in order to make 2 portals for exploration outpost purposes. Portals can be amazing if exploring places you aren't sure about, since you can always pop home where most of your gear is to switch things out as needed or grab stuff you forgot. Just remember to put the portal in a safe place, and not directly next to your bed either. You don't need both of your methods of getting back easily to get wrecked in one unfortunate event.

ALWAYS try to land in meadows if possible, and preferably larger ones. If a meadows isn't possible, do not ever under any circumstances land in a swamp if you actually want to keep your boat. Plains are also generally a horrible idea thanks to deathsquitos, you want to stay away from those shores until ready for that or just get one shot by a giant bug. If you have to mine somewhere farther out, try to find a black forest near a decent sized swamp (can be hard to safely verify the swamps size while in that early gear, but try your best without risking your life, bonus points if you can already see crypts or geysers in the swamp from afar) that way the base you end up making out there can be useful for more than just the bronze age everyone seems to hate and rush through anyway. Make a storage for the ores you gather. You wont be able to use the portal to transport them, but you can save them up so that it's actually worth it to make the trip in the boat to (remember, the karve has 4 storage slots of its own, that's potentially 120 ore on its own, plus whatever you can carry and possibly more if you dont mind some tricks).