This isnt Oblivion. If you want to explore for hours upon hours i would recommended oblivion, fallout 3 or fallout new Vegas.
I believe you miss the point, mate.
Oblivion offered a huge game experience and a massive world - in this day-and-age, why didn't F3?? Albion should, in 2010, be equally as large, diverse and crammed with things to do. Sadly, it's not. To me and many others this was a huge let-down. The LH method of areas linked by load-page, rather than one huge map, actually makes creating a larger world easier for the devs. Alas, I have a 250G HDD that this 'next gen' game doesn't even dent.
I agree with the OP - Albion is much, much too small. Here's hoping that the next Elder Scrolls gives me the 'second life' sized game that I crave. I bought into PM's enthusiasm, hyperbole and hype (remember 'Aurora's even bigger than Albion'??) and disappointment has ensued. I was hoping that F3 would be a play-til-the-next-instalment game, but it's not. The graphics, mechanics (bugs aside) etc are all good - it just needs to be 500-800% bigger.
At this point, about a month in, in Oblivion, I hadn't even reached 2/3rds of the map - I've completed F3, 100%, 5 times now.
Undisputably, Albion is too small - what we got was fun, but only very briefly.