[Destroyer]

ok so I dig this game
I been playing for a couple days. I'm level 9 and about to scrape some coin together to pay this dude to take me on his ship
here's the deal tho
I got all these plans for dope shit, like level 37 armor and shit
how the fuck do I level up faster? I went back to the first map area and walked around clearing all the question marks and shit, I guess I could do that with velen too.
should I be doing more shit off the notice boards in all the towns? I haven't really fucked with any of that, but I'm trying to level up faster than this