I thought'd be fun to try to record the rough order I did/found major things in. I've mostly avoided the story stuff and just wandered round. Starting a bit late, but doing my best to remember:

1. Decided to be a good boy and headed straight for the temple of time.
2. … When I left the Grat Plateau area I was also a good boy and went East, but instead of heading to find Impa I wandered round near the wall and foudn the woodcutter's place, then headed into the snowy area till I found a shrine.
3. Started heading north again to the swampy area and kept following the water to less-cold mountains.
4. Found another shrine and realised I was near where those Zonra were trying to get me to go, so began a really fun journey up to Zoraland. I was really underpowered, so ran past every fight I could and took lots of shortcuts with the glider, mostly just had trouble from lighting and getting lost. This was the first thing that really made me like the game, it really felt like a journey up that mountain.
5. Didn't actually feel like doing any kinda boss thing, so after hanging round in Zoraland and talking to the king and stuff I warped back to the shrine and explored a bit further north and more of the wetlands area.
6. I think at this point I went back to the plateau and learned I could get more heart containers and stamina from the goddess statue.
7. Ended up exploring the plat. a bit more, then headed off into the red dirt area. Came across my first horses and road one into the mountains, but got pretty wrecked by big skellies. Respawned in the horse area and the text 'Xenoblade Chronicles 2' appeared on the screen, and thought I'd found a bug. Got my way to an NPC cooking near a shrine, did the shrine, and headed back home.
8. I think next I meandered my way to Kakariko, listened to Impa, then found the great fairy. Mostly from there I went to find a photo I thought was on the plateau, …
9. …
10. Had two towers to do, so thought I could cheese them a bit now I could jump a million miles into the air.
11. Remembered those modular houses and how it seemed like you could buy one, so went back to Hateno. Guy sitting by fire I'd never seen before pointed me toward sa house over a bridge. So I did all the house stuff and upgrades.
12. Went looking for the house guy that left, and did his first request. Second needed a Goron, so stopped there. Also found the near-by great fairy and did some upgrades
13. Headed to skull lake and met the Fang and Bone guy.
14. Kept wandering and got to the Goron climbing challenge, did the first one, failed the second. Figured I must be near Goron town so put on my desert clothes and headed into the Death Mountain area.
15. Hot clothes don't help, so I went through most of my food going the long way to Goron town, but made it to the shrine, did that, then bought some appropriate clothes.