How does different styles of planning a map effect the players?

I am designing a hex map for my next campaign and wanted to know how different styles of planning out locations on the map effects the players view of things. Importantly I’m not looking for the “right” way to do it. We all know there isn’t one best way to plan out a map, and different groups will like different styles. I just want to know your thoughts on how different ways of planning my map would affect the players.

For context, I’m using Hexographer to construct a hex map that will by for my eyes only. Every possible location will be marked, but right now I don’t know WHAT is at those locations (except for the most important ones). The players will have their own hex map to track their progress on. This map will start off blank. Players will also have a “treasure” map which will be marked with the important locations but is drawn with vague, general distances.

Here’s what I was able to come up with for possible way of planning out what is at those locations:

• Plan out every location with a overview sentence or two

• Plan out locations they are near and fix them to the map

• Plan out 10-15 locations with an overview sentence or two and either

	    Choose what the location is when they get there

	    Randomly choose what the location is when they get there

It seems that every one of these would look the same from the players point of view. They are traveling along to a major destination, when they suddenly come across a minor destination. They didn’t know it was there, or what it could have been until they came across it. To them, they feel like they discovered a new place, whether I chose what they found, randomized it, or had it preplanned.

I have only been able to think of two ways that these ways of planning differ. But I know there is more reasons, I just don’t know what they are.

If they found out I was choosing what every location they found was when they found it, then they would no longer feel that sense of discovery because it was chosen for them. But then is planning out what the locations are before the players find them just a safe guard against that one possibility?

Or how if the places were preplanned before the party arrives then people in the world might be talking about them giving the world a sense of realness. But then what’s the difference to the players between planning every location or just the ones near the party?

What do these different styles of planning look like from the players point of view?