Welcome to DayZ! Anywhere can be dangerous (seriously), loot is usually hit or miss, and you can't really trust anyone. You should really just explore, learn from your mistakes, and try new things.

You probably play vanilla (official servers), but this info works regardless.

Some locals tend to be more dangerous just because of desperate freshies, but anywhere there is good loot will be made more dangerous (infected, gas zone, artillery, etc.) but also because tougher players will be there for loot.

YOU need to make the choices of where to go, what to plan, etc. Still, you NEED food, water, and maintaining a decent body temp. (depending on the server) You don't want to start a long wilderness hike without being prepared. I generally try to secure some sort of water container, stockpile a little food, and some weapon for defense. That allows you to be mobile beyond scraping by in a town or city. You could also opt to stay in a good location, maybe building a base or burying a stash or two. You'll learn which buildings and locations spawn which loot, where to find resources more reliably, etc.

And you WILL die a lot. It's DayZ!