Howling Fjord vs Borean Tundra: Where Should You Start?
Galoheart posted some good views and tips on the leveling experience from 70-80. I figured I'd weight in my opinion on the debate between starting in Borean Tundra or started in Howling Fjord.
Let me first just get out of the way that you are going to want to do both starting zones to get the full picture of what's going on. The order that I quested in beta was Borean Tundra to Howling Fjord to Grizzly Hills to the Dragonblight to Zul'drak and from there I would have gone to Sholazar Basin to the Storm Peaks and the culmination at Icecrown Glacier.
Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord span the same levels (69-72). The Grizzly Hills and the Dragonblight span the same amount of levels (73-76). Sholazar Basin and Zul'drak span the same amount of levels (76-79). And finally, The Storm Peaks and the Icecrown Glaicer span the same levels (79-80). In essence, if you ran a lot of instances, you could go straight from 70-80 doing just one half of Northrend. I don't think this is best way as I hit 80 about halfway through Zul'drak in my journey and that left three and a half zones for me to quest for gold.
Now the question on a lot of peoples minds (I know some people located this blog by searching the question in Google), is whether they should start in Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra. I'll give you a nice set of pros and cons for each zone.
Borean Tundra
Borean Tundra is on the west side of Northrend. The Horde get here from the zeppelin tower outside Orgrimmar and the Alliance get here from Stormwind Harbor.
Borean Tundra is the launch point of the orcs lead by Garrosh Hellscream and Overlord Saurfang. The main enemies you face are blue dragons, nerubians, magnataur, Nessingwary hunters, and generic undead Scourge forces.
I think that majority of people are going to hit Borean Tundra first. Orgrimmar and Stormwind are more popular than the Undercity or going to Menethil Harbor. So expect to see Borean Tundra crawling with people. Borean Tundra is also quite ugly. A mixture of whites, reds and browns make up the color palette.
On the upside though, the initial quests in Borean Tundra will give you more experience than the ones in Howling Fjord. The initial Borean quests all give 20k experience each, with the initial Howling Fjord ones giving only 12k each. (Note: I only know this from early beta, so they may have retuned the experience rewards since then). If you're in need of weapons, Borean Tundra has a quick questline that culminates in a blue weapon that is fairly simple to get through.
The variety of quests in Borean Tundra is also a bit more exciting as well, having multiple quests that give you control of siege weapons.
There is one level 70 instance here where you fight the Blue Dragonflight.
Howling Fjord
Howling Fjord is on the east side of Northrend. The Horde get here from the zeppelin tower outside the Undercity and the Alliance get here from Menethil Harbor.
Howling Fjord is the launch point of the Forsaken and their quest for a plague. The main enemies you face are Vykul and Dark Iron Dwarves.
I am expecting that Howling Fjord will be the less populated place just because more people just have the instinct to go to Northrend as soon as possible and their habits lead them to Orgrimmar and Stormwind and not Undercity and Menethil.
I do think that Howling Fjord is a much more beautiful zone. Sweeping green hills and lots of trees as well as a great soundtrack as well. It just doesn't have as many quests as Borean Tundra. But while the quests are less varying in style, they aren't short on lore.
Howling Fjord also has one level 70 instance where you fight the Vykul.
Synopsis
All in all, it just depends on your own personal preference. I expect for the first couple days Borean Tundra will be as bad as Hellfire Peninsula was whereas Howling Fjord, while busy, won't be nearly as populated. If you're trying to rush to 80, I think Howling Fjord would be the path (even though the quests are less experience initially there will be less competition). I know some people that are set on Howling Fjord first because they can't wait to see the Forsaken lore and fight with vikings. I know others that are dead set on Borean Tundra because they love the orcs and the Blue Dragonflight.
If you have any other questions about the zone, just leave a question in the comments.