I think you've got lots of really good advice here.
The only thing I haven't read here is perhaps a little archaic (or limited by facility) - but I have found it incredibly useful in marginal weather before I got my IR(r). You can request from quite a few airports / aerodromes QDMs. Some will even give you periodic updates on QDM back to an airfield if you ask them kindly.
I normally try to find obvious features and navigate with those when I am not flying with a GNS430 or SkyDemon.