Does anyone have a good strategy that they use when they start a new game.

The obvious way to start, which I do fairly often, is hang out in Goodsprings and do the quests there for exp points and a couple level raises.

Then follow the "railroad"(as some call it), tracking Benny south, east and north until you reach Vegas, talking to everyone you can along the way.

By the time you reach Vegas you are level 10(or higher) and have many locations on the map you can explore, or start exploring Vegas itself.

The opposite would be to shortcut it straight to Vegas at a low level, you will arrive at a much lower level with fewer resources.

I guess the other strategy, if you can call it that, is to scrounge everything and sell what you don't use.