I'm going to start a brand new account and play a character as F2P from scratch... any suggestions?

I wanted to try and capture the wonder/amazement I had for the game when I first started playing... without all the credits, legacy boosts, and conveniences my main account has. I want to take my time and do every quest and level as slowly as possible.
I'm going to try doing it as a F2P account since it has the lowest rate of levelling and the least perks. But F2P is downgraded from when I first started playing, when the game first came out and was subscriber-only. So I'm going to send the new account some unlocks like accessing their guild bank, artifact gear, etc. I was wondering if maybe I should upgrade to preferred via buying $5 worth of cartel coins at least?
Does anyone have any ideas/tips about how I could re-capture the wonder of the game? I'm hoping just not having millions of credits/items will help a lot.