Ngl first thing I did was ignore the main quest. My years of Skyrim, fallout 3 & 4, Ubisoft open worlds and Witcher taught me to look for the main quest, then go in the complete opposite because then that's where the wacky stuff happens.

I was kinda annoyed that Starfield wasn't like that. After a few hours, I got kinda bored and followed the main quest (to a degree), and that's when a lot of the game world opened up and I started to really enjoy it.