Best place

[Hemingway]

Best place to start a settlement that has wonderful visuals and a good layout?

 

[Evgeniy]

Ashfurt or Dartmoor for example.
Though it's nice to explore by yourself.

 

[manekemaan]

i like falconpass

 

[Berpol]

Best place to start a settlement that has wonderful visuals and a good layout?

Don't take anything with a name beginning with Empt (no scenes).
The other settlements are very different, island, forest, underground, mountain pass...
Before you choose you could activate the mod cheats, use these cheats to advance a settlement to full upgrade and see how it looks (and use the cheats to downgrade again).

Beside the ones I created I think I like Ettlesen best.