Speend a day in luxerion
I then went to yuusnan but it doesn't really matter, first few days are crap cause fights are harder BC of crap stats
In terms of story completion difficulty i think yuusnn lux dd wildlands
But the actual story set up is like the datalog shows; lux yus wildlands dd
Which is how I did it

Side quests, just talk to people with bubble son give you the
Don't depend on the chocobocolina walls for leveling up but its nice supplementation for all t crap you pick up sometimes

Keep the hours in mind. Just like some of the gates making areas locked at some hours, some npcws are around only when their schedule permits