I'm just looking to see what the community verdict is on this...

Should I fast travel, or will I have more fun without..? ^_^

You should explore. But if you mean fast travel to avoid useless backtracking across the province, no, you shouldn't.

That depends on how much you like the scenery and how much time you have to play.

Me, personally, I fast travel. Not much. But just in between quests when I have to go to one side of the map and back to the other side.

Fast Travel is extremely handy. I enjoy travelling by foot when I really really need to, or just feel like going out and murdering bandits, but Fast Travel is a god-send.

Fast traveling is helpful for speeding up quest completion but you'll miss a lot of stuff in between. I fast travel most of the time but I've already got 2 characters L60+ and done most of the content.

Your choice, if you are short on time or your destination is in a particularly awkward place then fast travel to your hearts content. Do you really want to walk up those 7,000 steps 100 times over the course of your game?

On the other hand, there are sights to see and random encounters to experience by taking a long stroll so both have their merits.

More fun without for sure. The biggest fun in these games is exploration, and if you use fast travel all the time you will miss so much. Also it can cut quests short - if someone gives you a quest across the other side of the map, it is a more epic experience to take your time journeying there on foot and discovering new things along the way rather than just turning up there with a click on the map. Fast travel can make quests seem short, because there's not much effort involved if you just appear at or near the quest objective.

It is of course up to you, but I would encourage you to at least give it a try without using fast travel - TES games are a different (and in my opinion, better) experience when not using it!

To clarify, which is the best way to get the full enjoyment and most immersion out of the game? Hehe.

Fast traveling is a handy feature without a doubt, but should I prioritize the side exploration that I'd experience without utilizing it?

You should totally fast travel. I fast travel from Whiterun to Dragonsreach all the time.

I agree, it's really a time thing, if you have alot of time... hoof it, it adds to the immersion, but that's a reason they let you buy horses when you could fast travel, for the immersion!

When you REALLY don't want to make a big trip around do it, or hire and carriage to go trough the main cities.

I do the following:

Going to a quest? DONT.

Returning from one? Your choice. When i'm on a hurry, i do. When i have plenty of time, i dont.

Never fast-travel. It completely ruins the game.

This one does it for me, guys. Thanks.

I would have to say that 80% of my fun in the game has involved cases where I have chosen not to fast travel. Had I fast traveled more often, this game would be much less fun than it really is. I feel bad for folks that fast travel on the regular. They really don't realize how much they are screwing themselves over, no offense intended. Ironically, these are usually the same people that complain that the quest lines are too short and they felt that they beat the game way too fast. I also hear more complaints about folks having to deal with dozens upon dozens of dragon encounters due to fast traveling. The word on the street is that fast traveling forces random dragon spawns more often, which can potentially burn you out on the experience.