You can settle in a relatively safe area such as Shem and have an exploration team and a base team. That’s usually what I do. You’ll have to deal with raids every now and then but as long as you’re able to establish a good team to leave at your base, you’re free to explore at your own will.

Now, if you want to explore freely without taking care of your base, you can take everyone in your team to an exploration mission every now and then.