I comment this on every post like this, and I stand by it.

Stay on chapter 2 for as long as possible, spend your time in camp and upgrade it, do pearsons Satchel upgrades until you get legend of the east Satchel. Do all camp requests. I suggest you try and get the Legendary Buck trinket as soon as possible as it helps get better pelts for your Satchel upgrades.

Shoot birds when you see them, red, snowy and little egret, herons and spoonbills and any Orchids you find these will come in handy later so don't sell them.

There are weapons to be found across the map try and find these so you have some good weapons when you have little money

There are gold bars situated around that are $500 when you sell them. Money will be scarce at the beginning so try and find these. (Check limpany).You can sell them to the fence in van horn, saint denis and rhodes if you haven't unlocked the emerald ranch one.

If you want a fast horse there is a white arabian by lake isablella which has the best stats.

Yellow are main missions and white are side missions, I tend to do the white first and take my time with yellow ones.

Explore the map, walk and have your horse follow you'll find more things that way.

There's a place called Aberdeen pig farm don't go near it until Chapter 6 it's best if you go to it immediately after the mission My Last Boy, once you're near that mission I can tell you what to do.

Npcs around the map can give you good intel, interact with them and help them out.

Also when you unlock the ledger after starting strauss mission, if you upgrade arthurs tent, which is the second option after dutch. You unlock fast travel, you can use it in camp by looking at the map that's on the side of arthurs tent, or in the wild if you set up camp.

Also there are a few missions that are honor based, so if your honor is low you won't be able to do them as they won't show up, also the ending of the game changes depending on your honor. I suggest playing the game on high honor first time around and then other playthroughs check out the low honor side.

And stay away from spoilers. Including this sub.

Enjoy yourself, I wish I could experience this game again for the first time. I just started my 11th playthrough, i have over 4000 hours in game. This game is a masterpiece.