I'm starting a campaign with some new-ish players who are all big Zelda fans, so I'm planning an "elemental temples find the crystal" adventure for them to sandbox around in.
I'm looking for an area with as many different environments in the smallest possible area, ideally without magical/supernatural explanations (although I might not stick with that requirement...)
My current thought is Varisia, which has plains, coast, mountains (can easily add a snow top for artic), swamp and desert (in the cinderlands)
But thought I'd get thoughts!
I didn't know that... I admit I assumed the Realms of the Mammoth Lords were just snow and tundra! I'll have to give it a look!
The Mwangi Expanse has grasslands, jungle, coastline, swamps, tall mountains, big cities, small villages, ancient ruins, raging rivers, a portal to Fantasy Mars, and one very big lake.
If you want an Elemental theme, my first thought would be Jalmeray, but fantasy India is probably not the flavor you pitched for a Zelda-like campaign. (It is really cool and my favorite part of the Impossible Lands, though.)
A typical Zelda or Final Fantasy "collect the elemental crystals" plot is fairly continent-spanning. If you wanted to truly replicate it, you'd probably have to send the party teleporting (or airship-ing) all over the Inner Sea.
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Arguably the Saga Lands. In Varisia alone you have marshes, rolling plains, forests, mountains, some underground stuff, Thassilonian ruins and Chelaxian cities, plus arid desert across the Storval Plateau and the Cinderlands. New Thassilon is extremely mountainous and controls the south of the Ironbound Archipelago, the Lands of the Linnorm Kings are Scandinavia-adjacent with a lot of islands, forests, and borders the polar ice of the Crown of the World, Irrisen has a lot of snowy tundra, and the Realm of the Mammoth Lords is akin to the Ice Age steppe grasslands, as well as subterranean mesozoic rainforests. That's a lot of environmental diversity packed into one geopolitical region.
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The Mwangi Expanse has grasslands, jungle, coastline, swamps, tall mountains, big cities, small villages, ancient ruins, raging rivers, a portal to Fantasy Mars, and one very big lake.
I'm a big fan of the expanse- but ideally I'm looking for something more condensed. Obviously there are ways to handwave/teleport/airship across larger areas but I'm hoping for something that is "walkable" whatever that means. I am however making my way through the Mwangi Expanse source book and fully intend to use it as the setting for my next full campaign (or more!)
This is NOT the answer you want, but it's thoughts on some benefits to the way the setting is shaped:
I consider a feature that the world is NOT loaded down with regions where there's a jungle next to a desert that is next to a frozen wastes adjacent to the swamp by the great canyon over near the lost mountains. ;)
While those provide lots of places for players to go, my ability to do 'suspension of disbelief' breaks apart when the geography looks like it was made by 12 year old me rolling on the AD&D 1E random dungeon tables such as D&D official worlds that begin with 'F' and 'G' both do...
I think your game will go much better by giving your players some ability to 'get around the map' quickly enough, rather than trying to re-work it all into a compact thingy.
Notice as you make your way through Mwangi Expanse that it 'holds up'. While the political scientist in me could probably rip it to shreds if I tried, on first blush that same political scientist doesn't freak out and run screaming for the exit like I do when I read almost any setting from any 'other publishers'. The one other setting I didn't freak out on seeing with Kalimdor from the 3.x days (but maybe only because I hadn't yet finished my degree).
Mwangi just 'works'. A lot of other parts of Golarian do as well. Even some places people freak out over 'Almost' hold up (when people question the absurdity of Numeria and the Stolen Lands I just think of Somalia, Libya, and how long and messy the aftermath of the French Revolution was).
Give your players a portal device, or an airship or just a flying-rainbow-camel or something, and then when you drop into radically different places it will make sense why it's so radically different here than it was over there last adventure. And if for some reason they decide to start walking, you can then deep dive a spot without running out of content the moment they leave the valley.