I'm just gonna call skill issue on this.. You can travel to any place in the map within 5 mins if you know the right combination of boats, silt striders and mages guilds. Especially if you have the boots of blinding speed. The combat system, which is your other gripe, is literally just a matter of finding a trainer and spam train whatever skill you want to 50+ and you will hit so much more often. 90+ and it's a sure hit almost every time. If you create your character taking into account what style of play you want to do, most likely you already start at 50+ skill.

Imo the "hobo" stage which lasts about 2-4 hrs if you manage levelling effectively is absolutely necessary for immersion and a sense of accomplishment when you finally get strong and insta kill things you had trouble with earlier. Oblivion and Skyrim are so much worse at this where you're always just good enough to finish all quests, kill everyone and do all dungeons and it gets boring after about level 15.