Alternative leveling in the Isle of Quel'Danas

I'm bored of Northrend. It is beautiful and has lovely music and is full of lore and I'm bored. It's the new Outland for me and my alts. Other ways to level abound, of course, but they all have their drawbacks and are various levels of "Been there; done that." as well. So I took Tizzi, the bored goblin mage, to a place where my aged druid spent many grindful days: the Isle of Quel'Danas.

We complain about dailies now, but Quel'Danas (also known as the Sunwell Isle) was the land of too many dailies for our quest log. Grind, grind, grind we ancient Burning Crusade players did, so we could be of the Shattered Sun and get some lovely loot besides. When Quel'Danas was the in-thing, everyone was max-level, so there was no XP -- just the cash, gear, and camping. Oh, so very much camping.

The Isle of Quel'Danas is vacant of players now, but is otherwise unchanged. It resides in a bubble in time, much like Outland, and the NPCs are still there to give quests or be slaughtered.

How do I get to the Isle of Quel'Danas?

The portal room in Shattrath City in the Terrace of Light holds the portal to the Isle. Exarch Nasuun still stands outside it giving the daily to keep it open.

At what level should I go there?

You can't pass through the portal or get any of the dailies until you are level 70.

What's the XP like?

You get about 30% less experience than the Dalaran dailies and about 50% less experience than the Northrend quests. The mobs you kill give only a little XP, but they're made of tissue paper. Well, not literally. They do bleed ... a lot ... and quickly. Then they die. Tizzi the mage is poorly geared, but she shreds right through them. You also get guild XP and rep and you can even grind up

Did you say grind?

Yes. These are your standard, pre-Pandaria dailies: kill some of these, bomb some of those, make a beer run. You get the idea. But they require very little travel, you have no competition, and they go quickly. You can even build up enough rep to acquire the of the Shattered Sun title. All you need is exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive and 1000g. (It was considered a gold sink in the olden days.)

Is this really better than Northrend?

The Isle of Quel'Danas is not for everyone. For one thing, you can't fly. Enemy players are also yellow (attackable without flagging PvP) if you're on a PvE realm. But if you want to spend a little time every day leveling a 70s alt in between your other activities, you could always park the character here for a quick round of dailies. You have to like blood elf colors, though. Red and gold. Red and gold. Red and gold.

So if you are bored of Wrath of the Lich King questing and want to party like it's patch 2.4, grab your heirlooms and head on over to the Sunwell Isle. Maybe Tizzi will see you there.