Teldrassil, the Night elf starting area, has no minerals.

Mining and Herbalism both use the minimap radar.

Mining is generally the most lucrative.

Skinning is generally the easiest, since you are often killing skinnable mobs as you level you are essentially looting twice.

One option is to take two gathering professions, this can supply a very good income and will remove the expense associated with leveling a production craft.

You will want to settle on two primary professions, or at least settle on not having any. Though professions are cheap to start, your time is not.

By the time your character is in the teen levels, this strategy will no longer pay off. This is useful when you first leave your starting area, around level 5 or 6, where the crafting professions can produce useful gear upgrades immediately. One way to minimize this is to cherry pick the professions all at once start out gathering, farm gathering a bit, then switch to crafting and make some key items, but don't invest heavily in training, then switch to what you really want. However, building and service professions are also costly to progress in. Your professions provide more capability and benefit when you keep them leveled up as you progress through the game.

The downside is that every time you switch professions, you lose all of your built up skill and recipe knowledge in the one you drop. You can use this to get a fair upgrade to your starting gear cheaply, and stock up on some low level consumables. When you are first starting, you might benefit by switching professions to meet a goal. And they are dirt cheap - Apprentice level training in a primary profession costs 9 in your starting area. But they are not 'cast in concrete', you can discard a primary profession and replace it. You can only have two primary professions at a time. See also: Beginner's guide to professions

Best professions wow legion