Hello and welcome to this guide for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition.
If you're reading this guide, you're either a new member of the Elder Scrolls community looking for assistance for your travels through the vast world of Skyrim, or an existing member of the community looking to learn something that they haven't noticed in the past decade of the game being out, or at the very least, looking for an interesting read.
In any of those cases, I hope I don't disappoint.

There's a lot of locations in Skyrim, 343 total, with a lot of people around Skyrim too. With all these people and all these locations, some may want to know which places are the most important. Well, fret not, as here is a list of what I believe to be the most important locations throughout Skyrim.

Riften - you can meet the Thieves guild here, you can also become a Thane of Riften, and if you wish to marry someone, you got must go to the church here to talk to the priest about marriage. - Area allied to Stormcloaks.

Winterhold - if you wish to learn more about magic, or just wish to have more quests and have a nice title, Winterhold is a decent place to got as you can become Thane and Arch-mage of Winterhold (and it's college). - Area allied to Stormcloaks.

Windhelm - more than likely you're going to come across this place sooner or later as it's important to the quest-line, but did you know this is also where you can begin your journey to become a member of the Dark Brotherhood? Can become a Thane. - Area is allied to and is HQ of Stormcloaks.

Dawnstar - another area in which you could become a Thane, and in this area you could also begin your DLC quest of hunting down Vampires (Or maybe go down the route of becoming one). - Area allied to Stormcloaks.

Falkreath - this area is another where you can become a Thane, this area is very unique due to it's large graveyard. - Area allied to the Imperials.

Solitude - A large city, which also acts as the Capital to all of Skyrim, and HQ to the Imperial Legion. You can also become Thane here. - Area allied to the Legion.

Morthal - A rather small city with a Dockyard, can become a Thane here, and you can also remove Vampirism as well if you dislike it. - Area allied to the Imperials.

Markarth - A major city in the mountains. Another area in which you can become a Thane. - Area allied to the Imperials.

Whiterun - You'll come across Whiterun very early in the game as it's where you'll learn about your destiny/fate as the Dragonborn. You can become a Thane here too. - Area is neutral early in-game, but becomes allied to the Imperials.

High Hrothgar - This is an important place to visit due to the Greybeards giving quests locations where you can pick up words to form a shout.

Now, in my opinion, these are some of the best factions to join in the vast world of Skyrim.

Now, if you're going for all the achievements (Like I was) you're going to want to choose a side early on in the game. You may just be thinking, "The fate of Skyrim rests on my shoulders, which side is the best, or at the least, looks the coolest."

Well to be honest, I went with the Imperial Legion as they just appealed to me with their metal armour and the fact that their cities aren't, I don't know, rubble?









However, I honestly think the Stormcloaks look cooler with their cute leather armour and their attitudes towards the Imperial Legion.









Now, once again you might just be thinking "Well those are the main factions, are there any smaller, optional factions out there?".
Well, yes (good question), there's a few of them out there. The best of them being the following.
-Dark Brotherhood (Assassins for hire, provides some ok cash)

-Thieves Guild (Opportunistic thieves for hire if the price is right, also decent cash)

-The Companions (Small mercenary group, Grants Warewolfism Perk)

-The Blades (Dragon hunters that swear fealty to the Dragonborn, natural allies of you)

-College of Winterhold (It's a college, in Winterhold, that deals in Magic, it's pretty handy, what else do you want me to say?)

-Bards College (Another college, but this one in solitude, and this time it's for aspiring bards and actual bards alike, may provide one point advancement for each skill).

-The Volkihar Clan (Group of old Vampires, provides Vampirism perk)

-The Dawngaurd (Vampire hunters, apparently provides decent gear)

There may be a few other factions out there that didn't make the List of Logman, that may be just as good if not better than these ones.

At some point in your adventures in Skyrim, you may start thinking (once again), "One of these days I'm gonna take an arrow to the knee and I won't be an adventurer any more, I best marry someone soon but who?"

Well great news! This game has plenty of fish in the sea, so, here are some of the best fish to marry.

1)Aela The Huntress, my bride of choice and from what I've seen from the community, one of the fan favourites. She's rather tolerant to some questionable actions like murder and thievery.
In order to have her along as a follower, you'll need to complete the entire Companions quest-line and destroy the Silver Hand. After that, she can be married and recruited as a follower.









2)Lydia, is also considered a popular marriage partner. She's relatively easy to meet, since the main quest will lead you her way.
Once you fight your first dragon at the Western Watchtower outside of Whiterun and discover your true nature as Dragonborn, Jarl Balgruuf will reward you with the position of Thane in Whiterun. Now, armed with your title as Thane, Lydia will become your Housecarl and she can be taken as a follower. She can now also be married.









3)Mjoll The Lioness is a lady worthy of courtship, she dislikes anything to do with corruption (mainly the Thieves Guild and Black Briar Family). You'll find her in Riften, usually hanging around the Bee and Barb Inn.
In order to marry her, you need to first retrieve her missing sword, Grimsever, from the Dwarven ruin of Mzinchaleft. However, in order for her to offer this quest you must be at least level 14 and gain her trust by agreeing that the Thieves' Guild are evil doers or by helping the people of Riften with various tasks. After her sword has been returned, she can be married. Wahoo.









4)Janessa, unlike some of the other people you can marry throughout Skyrim's vast gene-pool, Janessa is a bit of an odd one. Mainly because she has no care in the world for any evil action you may commit. In fact, she's kinda obsessed with killing. If you're a bit of a wild card, and like to commit mass murder, maybe this is your kinda gal, who knows?









5)Muiri, is a lady you can come across and marry, but only after you complete her quest "Mourning Never Comes" (must be apart of the Dark Brotherhood). Note: You must also complete the optional objective if you wish to gain her hand in marriage.
I mean, she hired you to kill a person, and loves it if you kill another person on top of that, so you'd think that means she's accepting of some little things here and there, where maybe you accidentally chopped off that guards best friends child's head.









Now, there's many others out there that you can marry, but those are some of the best out there (according to the community and a bit of research). You can also install mods as someone has suggested in the comments to expand the ocean of fish that you may want to marry, but which mods are the best, I don't personally know, as such that is for you to find out.
Note: Due to some peoples views I have to state the following. This is not fact, it's subjective.

In case you didn't know, this game has console commands. Just like other Bethesda games (Like Fallout).
These do not stop achievement hunting and will not get you banned, these are around purely for fun. There's a decent list here so read through it carefully if you want to test anything out.
To get into the console commands, press this button. If it doesn't work, try pressing the @ button.










Tgm - Toggles God mode (Invincibility, infinite carry weight)
Tcl - Toggles No-clip mode (Fly, walk through walls)
Tfc - Toggle free camera (Decent for screenshots)
Tai - Toggle Artificial Intelligence (Freezes enemies)
Tcai - Toggle Combat Artificial Intelligence (Freezes enemies)
Tg - Toggle grass
Tm - Toggle menus, HUD
Tdetect - Toggle AI Detection (Avoid getting caught stealing)
Tmm 1 - Toggle Map Markers
Tfow - Toggle FOW
Movetoqt - Teleport to quest target
Psb - Give all spells to player
Player.advlevel - Force a Level Up (No perk points added)
Saq - Start all quests (Warning: Not a good idea!)
Caqs - Complete all Quest Stages
Qqq - Quit the game
Kill - Kill targeted person/animal/mystical thing
Killall - Kills all in nearby area (unless they're important to the completion of a quest)
Resurrect - Resurrects targeted person/animal/mystical thing
Unlock - Unlocks targeted locked chest or door
Lock X - Lock targeted chests or door, where X is the difficulty level of the lock (0 - 100)
Removeallitems - Removes all items of targeted NPC
Enableplayercontrols - Enable controls during cinematics
Setownership - Changes ownership of target so you can steal it
Duplicateallitems - Duplicate items (Target container or NPC and copy the RefID)
Fov XXX - Change field of view.
Advancepclevel - Increase your Level
Advancepcskill (skillname) X - Increase skill level
Advskill [[[skill]]] XXX - Increase targeted skill by XXX amount
Setpcfame - Set targeted character's fame
Setpcinfamy - Set targeted character's infamy
Player.modav [attribute name] [amount] - Apply modifier (+ or -) to the named attribute or skill. Skills are entered as they appear in-game, without spaces or quotes, except for Speech and Archery, which are "speechcraft" and "marksman" respectively. Attributes are things like "health" or "carryweight", again without spaces or quotes. NOTE: Using the modav command will cause attributes modified by it to always appear in green, as the game thinks they've been buffed. You can try "setav" instead (untested), but in other Bethesda games this has sometimes led to permanent problems.
Player.modav carryweight X - Set Carry Weight
Player.modav burden X - Increase Burden by X
Player.modav Dragonsouls X - Add Dragon's Souls to your pool, allowing you to improve your shouts.
Player.setav speedmult X - Increase movement speed, where X is a multiplier (percentage)
Player.setav Stamina X - Set Stamina
Player.setav Health X - Set health
Player.setcrimegold X - Set to 0 if you want it to be free
Player.setav Magicka X - Set Magicka
Player.setlevel X - Set Level
Player.placeatme X - Spawns an NPC at your location, where X is NPC ID
Player.setscale X - Change scale of player, where X=1 is normal
Player.IncPCS [Skill Name] - Increase the level of targeted Skill by one.
Showracemenu - Brings up the race selection/character customization menu. NOTE: This will reset your character to level 1 and all your skills to their initial base values.
[target].getavinfo [attribute] - This will display a short list of information about the given attribute (health, skills, etc.) of the specified target. You can omit "[target]." if you first click on the target with the mouse, or you can replace it with "player." if you want the info on your character. For example:player.getavinfo lightarmor
Player.additem XXXXXXXX "###"- Adds items based on Item Codes, where XXXXXXXX is the item code, and ### is the amount you want.
Player.additem 0000000f "999" - Add 999 Gold
Player.additem 0000000a "100" - Add 100 Lockpicks
Player.addperk XXXXXXXX - add perks based on perk codes, i.e. player.addperk 000c44b8 would add the adept alteration perk. Make sure your skill level is high enough to have the perk before you enable it or it may not work properly and that you add any multi-tier perks in order.

Achievement guides are really long to write out as you have to provide a decent explanation for each achievement if you wish for it to be successful. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, has at least 75 different achievements. In short, i'm too lazy to write one out, especially when there's already a pretty great guide out there. Like this one here.

https://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1312394765&searchtext=achievement+guide
All credit goes to those guys for putting in a lot of effort, as it looks rather amazing.

I've gained majority of this Info first-hand in game, but did gain some extra info from other online guides from the likes of IGN, GameRant, and friendly people down in the comments.
If there are things you think are important too add, or think I've gotten something wrong, or just have a question or two, please comment down below.
(Also, with all the effort I've put into this guide, i'd appreciate it if you'd all be so kind as to rate it up, favourite it, and maybe if you're feeling generous, provide a few awards).

A small side note: The Author of this guide will not accept any random friend requests. If, for any reason you want to add me, let me know in the comments, thanks.