The New Player Sandbox

I just recently got a new friend of mine into D&D, and naturally, after building a character and playing out a single encounter he's now hooked. Since I've already got several other campaigns in place that I'm DMing, I dont really have the time to set up a whole new one. At the same time, I dont really want to make this new player wait till one of the old campaigns has petered out, and I'm not ready to add him to one of them. So what do I do?

The answer is this: I've begun setting up a "sandbox" style world for him to play around in. The premise will be very simple: Go forth and adventure, my son!

I picked up an overland map from the WOTC map-a-week archives and started populating it with pre-existing adventures and encounters I've wanted to use but have never had the chance. Since there wont be any overarching campaign goal, I dont really have to worry so much about scaling encounters or killing his PC. I want it to be fun for him, but I also want him to get a feel for the danger of the game - which makes it more fun in the long run.

This idea of creating a sandbox world for him to play in is nothing new, but its something I havent done since I was really young and I'm looking forward to seeing how long he lasts. The other thing I dont plan to do is pull any punches on the dice rolls... we'll see how that turns out. I dont wanna scare him away from this hobby just yet. Looks like the NPCs he meets will probably be giving him a lot of advice...