I am learning how to run a Lightning node. I don’t have millions of sats to spend on opening a whole bunch of channels with diverse nodes. I just want to store my sats on my own node and spend it wherever I can. Which node is recommended to open a channel with? For example there is a Dutch node (I am Dutch) ‘Lightning.watch’ that has 400 channels but in Canada there is ‘Wallet of Satoshi’ that has 2476 channels. Now, which one is better? How do I choose the best node for my needs to open a channel with?
I suggest you find nodes with low fees and many channels. Scour 1ML.com. Geographical location makes no difference. Don’t open small channels - minimum 2000000 sats.
Thanks!
Just started opening channels to try and find some connectivity, so sort of an educated noob 
The correct way to do it would be to have direct channels to whomever you want to pay to.
Remember every channel costs money (~1500 sats), so you are actually loosing money when you start.
Then remember that channels need to be balanced, inbound and outbound, which also costs money, for functionality.
Just a heads up: I have 7 open channels, with over 1M sats there, and still was unable to receive a payment from a friend (with no direct channel), today.
That said, the fun is in finding out how this works!