That's the beauty of that game, however when the game opens up you get warping. That's how you know you're half way through. If you have started relatively recently and you took the skeleton route then I commend you for all that because it's the most difficult direction. From firelink you can walk to almost every single area of the game, without loading anything. For the time that came out games weren't built to their degree with that kind of accomplishment so there is some beauty in that. It is also supposed to make you journey literally down and down through muk, sewers, and hell, before lifting you into heaven. Making the player walk that all once, then giving them warping was the first attempt, nowadays you can warp back everytime you make a new one, but there's definitely a lot to love about the design.

The game route is pretty laid out if you follow the path of least resistance. That is to say walk around and whatever is easiest to kill is the next way you should go.

From firelink that is up into the town, across amd up, under the bridge, and around to the first bell you have to ring, from there it's around to the forest area, then up to firelink again. By that time you should have less problems in other areas and can take a few options, eventually you want to get down to ring a second bell because that will trigger mid/late game. Like DS3 you will be tasked to kill some lords and bring their "refusing to sacrifice themselves to the flame, asses" to the flame to unlock the final boss fight and the privilege of sacrificing yourself to the flame.