A lot of people tend to pay for the ship and airship rides to various destinations in the beginning of the game, since this is arguably more convenient than walking there.
However, about 4-5 years ago I started experimenting with *walking* to every destination, no matter how far-off those places were;
and I found myself enjoying this a lot more than I was expecting, and there were several reasons for that.
Walking to every destination (including Kashuon and the Warship, by the way) made the game feel more "adventurous", like I was on a grand journey, plus it also saved a lot of money.
But one of my favourite things about walking everywhere was that it gave me a lot of time to train my characters in a natural way.
I didn't need to bother with the Select-Cancel bug or anything, I just fought normally and liberally used magic spells in meaningful ways in order to power them up.

My usual strategy, which I have always enjoyed a lot for some reason, is that I decide from the start on turning Frioniel into a Fighter/White Mage, Maria into an Archer/Black Mage, and Guy into a pure Berserker (axe fighter);
then I have Frioniel learn Cure (for obvious reasons) and Maria learn Ice (so that she can prepare for LandTrtle in Semite Cave and Adamanti in Snow Cave) and have them use those spells whenever there is the slightest reason to do so (in fact, at this point Maria spends most of her time using Ice as her main attack when I walk between destinations).
And then as soon as I have enough money, I will buy Safe and Shell for Frioniel and Fire and Bolt for Maria, and have them use those spells as well.
This way, all of these spells can be increased to LV2 pretty quickly, without ever using the Select-Cancel bug at all.
And also, Frioniel and Guy have become better attackers, and everyone has got an HP increase.

I actually recommend playing this way, there is a very special satisfaction in walking on foot like this and seeing the characters gradually improving on the way.
It's kind of like a video game equivalent of weightlifting - you take a tough road, and then you use an Inn and delight in the improved HP and MP etc, all earned through hard work.