Yeah as Ur stated: you'll have to continue on in the main quest until you reach the next alliance's zone, then from there you can pretty much breeze through until I believe Vet level 4 (which is where Cadwell's gold would start) but that would be after you complete silver, so unless you are powerlevelling somewhere/somehow, you do have to follow the main questline to reach the different vet zones.

Note: I, too, tried wandering through craglorn at a relatively low level and found it particularly difficult to survive hehe