Northrend Quest Leveling: Clear zones or skip by level?

If you've gone through Northrend once already, I'd recommend going and doing whatever quests you like most. If you've got Heirloom Shoulders and Chest, you'll be leveling at a positively comical level, so don't worry too much about clearing out a zone. If you come in at level 68, though, I recommend wiping through the starting zone you choose (BT or HF), and going through and doing whatever's left in the other. My personal rule is to never leave a quest chain I've started unfinished, unless it's capped with an Elite quest. But the moment I finish up whatever chain is turning green to me, I get the heck out of that zone and move on.

This is entirely a matter of opinion and you should level the way you most enjoy.

Personally when leveling up my alts I tried to do zones I didn't do the first time around just to make the experience more interesting.

Personally I would clear the zones entirely. I just dinged 80 on a rogue myself, and I had just (barely) started Zul'Drak after clearing Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Grizzly Hills. By continuing the quests and clearing the zones entirely, you should rack up a decent amount of gold (not to mention the achievements you'll earn for clearing each zone). However, you might also want to skip ahead to get an early start on things like the Sons of Hodir quest chain in Storm Peaks, or the quest chain in Sholazar to start earning Oracle/Frenzyheart rep.

dont do Howling and Borean, just pick one. thats why you didnt see storm peaks or Icecrown. I found Howling alo faster to level through than borean tundra, and a more fun zone

This question seems a bit subjective, but let me offer this bit of opinion in return:

Leveling in Northrend is entirely different than leveling in Azeroth or even the Outlands. The quest hubs are more centralized and after finishing up one quest hub, you typically will be given a quest to travel to the next, etc. until you end up finishing all of the quests in that zone. The logical path, therefore, is to clear the zone quest by quest in whichever order you feel best. On my main I was able to hit level 80 (with a few instance runs under my belt) at roughly a third of the way through Zul'drak.

I've found that the experience and quest rewards for the Northrend quests don't really offer too many opportunities to really "skip over" quests or zones as you can do in most of Azeroth. Tag every quest you can, finish it, then move to the next hub until you ding 80. Return for the dailies for some extra cash and reputation, but otherwise, don't look back.

I would also advise that you don't pass up on the elite quests. Most of them can be soloed by nearly any class and you'd be surprised how many people might be willing to help if you asked in General Chat.

Whatever you have fun with. Personally i did a zone till i couldnt find more quests, then moved to next zone. Howling --> dragonblight etc :)

These days until quest go grey they award full XP. Completing a quest that is orange in your quest log or green gives the same XP.

Do whatever is easier, quest gear is not important as you can get up so fast and easily once you hit 80.

The only other factor is rep. I'd go unlock Hodir or any other reps you need at 79.

I'd say whatever you have fun with - since there's so many zones you have a lot of options on what path to take while levelling. If you hate a zone you can skip it, for instance (Zul'drak can go die in a fire).

Also of note: higher-level zones (especially Icecrown and Storm Peaks) give obscenely good gold if you complete them after you've hit 80.

Some of the zones are also an alternative way to repgrind if you don't feel like running instances with a tabard until you're sick of them (I hit Revered Ebon Blade - from Friendly, as I did it on my Death Knight, but still - simply by tracking down and doing every single quest that awarded rep with that faction, for instance); if you're at all interested in any rep rewards at all (helm enchant, for example), poke Wowhead with a stick and find 1. what rep rewards you're after 2. what quests in what zones give rep with that specific faction.

It might just be me, but it's fun to have a goal beyond "must hit 80" to work towards while questing :)

My friend and I just leveled to 80 quite swiftly, me with a kitty, him with a rogue. The way we did it is the way I leveled my last two characters to 80. We started in Howling Fjord, quested every single quest there was, moved to Borean, then Dragonblight, then Grizzly, then Sholazar - completing every quest we could manage between two of us.

As far as leveling goes, obviously the dual heirlooms (chest, shoulders) are a must, and I've found that 'green' XP (from green quests) is the best. Minimum effort, still plenty of reward.

Follow Jame's leveling guide, simply because it's optimized for leveling quickly and you don't have to bother to read quest logs (unless you want to read them) It will make you leave a zone when either the easy quests are over or quests start to get green.

But then again, doing everything a second time should make things a lot easier. So you shouldn't worry too much.