Those types of sim games are great to play. The side story needs to be completed in Chapter 1 at the moment. I'm working on a way of travelling between lands you have visited. It will be a feature in future. But, how this works will be worked in to the story.
Viewing post in Some further updates for the new jrpg content. comments
Yes, that's the map. New Varoona will be more open and have the important parts bundled together in a big open map with the newer graphics. I found the old version was all over the place and clustered together. It is one of the oldest made maps which was left behind, and I'm gladly almost done remaking the forest area.