The Tavern Where We Met (OOC)
I'd rather not trek through the swamp muck either.
Typically, in OSR-type games, the further away from the 'base of operations' (which in this case is the Keep) you go, the more dangerous things are (and more rewarding, if you make it back alive).
There's really no way to know where to go other than if we can get such information from the NPCs (which is what Falco tried to do, but they didn't provide much). Otherwise, we just keep wandering around and hoping for the best.