As starting areas go, i believe Howling Fjord beats both Borean Tundra and Hellfire Peninsula.
It's beautiful, has lots of varied quest nodes, and lots of long and interesting quest chains.
In my opinion, the only advantage of Borean Tundra is that it has some 'mounted/vehicule' quests.
Howling Fjord will always hold a special place in my heart because I had no business being there the first time I went. Before Mr. Chilly was added, I wanted to get a Pengu for my husband and neither of us knew you needed a certain rep to buy it. We were both mid-to-high 40's level, Tauren druid (me) and Tauren warrior (him). Once we got to Vengence Landing, we ran through the worgs on our kodos. Got stuck waiting for the lift, and husband's warrior died. I rez'd him just as the lift returned. Then we just kept moving down the road, being chased by shoveltusks all the way! One almost caught us, but we got to the Ancient Lift just in time! Didn't get the penguin (obviously), but we enjoyed riding the giant turtles, doing some fishing, and meeting the Tuskarr.
It's beautiful, has lots of varied quest nodes, and lots of long and interesting quest chains.
In my opinion, the only advantage of Borean Tundra is that it has some 'mounted/vehicule' quests.
While some people seem to like it, I wish someone would develop the addon that would automatically mute the music in the Fjord and Grizzly Hills.
It's like listening to bagpipe marching band.
Once muted though, it is a fantastic zone with a lot of variety, many different quest lines and of course the turkey slaughter achievement!
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