I chose a fairly wild location on the planet I was assigned to at the start (Berlyn), and now I’m wondering how I can get to a place where other people are, ideally with shops. Will I have to change planets? Or just wander around Berlyn til I find a city?
Also, what are the best resources for reading about gameplay mechanics like this? The third-party wiki (https://boundless.gamepedia.com/Boundless_Wiki) seems a bit out of date, and http://boundlesscrafting.com/ seems to be just about crafting.
Your compass will have the capital marked in orange. Once there you can follow the portal networks (purple compass markers) to many shops and the rest of the worlds.
These forums are a great place to search for answers and are highly active.
Welcome to Boundless!
Orange is home omni 
The capital is yellow 
That is, if you have unlocked the compass skill…
They both look the same to me 
Thats totally fair, i know some people see colours differently 
Even though I started on the US West region, if I travel to other planets, will it automatically change region? It seems like way more people are on US East than US West.
Every world (server) is hosted in a specific region:
Boundless deals with latency really well so you probably won’t even notice that change. The most active worlds currently are Therka (EU) and Solum (US East).
got active comunity there youre free to join us
oh and in aquatopia is a shoppingcenter with spots a hand out pretty busy place 