I haven't played Skyrim in about 9 months, perhaps a little longer, I loved my time with Skyrim and I spent countless hours playing. The problem was I done all quest lines with one character. So when I did everything I could find (sure there was without a doubt some random quests I missed) it got boring, I couldn't start a new character and enjoy it because almost everything was so fresh in my mind.

Anyways I want to get back into Skyrim with a survivalist explorer type build. I'm on PS3 so mods aren't an option but do you guys have any tips for this build to get me back into one of my favourite games of all time? Quest lines to do? Rules to follow? Skills to invest in? Places in the wilderness to stay?

Forget all questlines. Just explore Skyrim on foot (no fast-travelling), and I bet you'll be surprised with what you find.

Okay thanks for the tip man!

Enjoy!

Another thing I do for my hunter/ranger is NEVER enter cities or walled settlements. Don't worry about money and only use what you find from enemies or craft with mined ore or harvested leather. It's surprisingly liberating NOT worrying about all of the micromanaging that comes along with money and travelling to cities.

My current character is an Alchemist/Hedge Wizard. She's wandering around collecting ingredients and making potions.

As a Wood Elf she's been made to feel unwelcome, so she's avoiding the walled settlements.

She only uses spells that she finds, although I did allow her to buy some basic spells in Riverwood.

At level up the perks go into Alchemy. Perks go into other skills only if there are no open Alchemy perks.

She's currently obsessed with finding Nirnroot. Apparently it's extinct in Cyrodiil having all been harvested by some guy from Kvatch.

It's been a lot of fun.

Yeah I had that idea already! Is there any lodges/shacks that you can recommend me to call 'home', preferably ones that are completely or nearly empty and don't have any major quests attached to them, yet are pretty well equipped. I'll certainly be mostly wondering but would be good to have a bit of a base I could return too once in a while. I have hearthfire but I'd rather not start it with this build as the quests are a little too involved for a hunter/wanderer build.

There are tons of unmarked hunter camps scattered around. There is a hunter's lodge in the hills near Falkreath. Anise's cabin near Riverwood. Alchemist's shack near Riften. Crabber's Shack north of Rorikstead.