I've been reading lately about things you can do to speed up the process of solo leveling. There are some nice tricks and basic strategies out there so here's a few I thought were worth sharing:

1. To loot or not to loot. For pure speed of questing, you should ignore all looting that isn't required for the quest you are on. Especially at levels 1-20 where the combined amount of gold you would get from looting all the trash is roughly 2-3g. Hardly worth it. The exception is in instances where there is a higher chance of green/blue drops, usually lots of cloth, and lots of more valuable vendor trash.

2. Wealthy benefactor. Assuming this is an alt, have your main drop 50g to your alt so you can get 16-slot bags, have the best gear available at your level, and get some cool enchants (see below) on your gear. That 50g should last for a long time and is less than an hour of your main's ability to make gold. Every 5 or so levels, hit the AH and re-gear. If gold is not a worry then don't hesitate to shell out for good blues that will carry you through ten or more levels. (I spent about 300g getting my rogue from 1-60ish and I can easily make that much in a short day on my lvl 80).

3. Who knew? Here are some really cool enchants/buffs that will help. White gear (no bonuses) can be enchanted and worn at level 1. Try these: Gloves/haste, boots/run speed, pants/high level leg bonus. Also, if you are a two-handed weapon user, get a counterweight asap as this also increases your melee haste. Shield spike at low levels is also good. White weapons can have incredible enchants thrown on them for spell power, etc. Look into these.

4. Quest. Quest. Quest. Soloing xp doesn't come from mobs as quickly as quests. Fill up your quest log and grind out 7-10 quests at a time before making your turn-ins. Drop gray (and later, green) quests especially if they are not time efficient.

5. Instances. If you have someone that can run you through a bunch of times when you are not at level for the instance, go for it. Otherwise, spend the extra time to grab all (or most) of the quests for those instances. The time spent is well worth the quest xp and possible gear upgrades. And, you won't end up having to be dragged through it 3 levels later because NOW you have the quests.

6. Zones to avoid. There are definitely those place we all know and hate (mine is Ashenvale) because the travel time between quests is enormous. If you are trying to level quickly, then skip them. Starting zones that are quest and time friendly: Ghostlands for Horde/Azuremyst for Alliance.

I hope some of these things help. I can't wait to try a few of them out!

As far as the looting thing goes this is kind of misinformed. Most early quests (like they talk about) you can only chain 3-6 quests AT MOST. To not fill your bags with other loot before going there is kinda of pointless. The method I use is to only collect items that stack. 90% of the time a stack of items will sell for more then just 1 stack garbage.

Hey Py! Thanks for chiming in. I agree that 7-10 sounds high (and impossible early on) but I think the general idea was to avoid doing 1 or 2 quests at a time. As far as the loot issue: I can't make myself not loot. lol. It is totally contrary to my nature and curiosity, but the idea behind it was to speed up the questing process by skipping the time taken to loot, and in your case, the extra time to sift through the loot to take what is more desirable. Personally, I auto-loot so it goes faster. But for those without a burning curiosity, skipping the loot on kill quests and general grinding undoubtedly speeds up the process (especially if you are a ranged attack class).