How to complete "Adventurer's (Item)" Quest?

[Kyo]

I really can't seem to find the damn shelter no matter where I search or where I go...
Please help me!

[PALU]

These search quests are rather tedious.

That said, the item quest is probably the easiest of these...

Find the area and walk through all the tiles that match the criteria, following the border, and move between these areas on the overmap. This quest is marked by bloods capes that I think are hard to miss if you move through the whole tile. You can also look for tracks from the animal mentioned, as such tracks, followed backwards, may lead you to the shelter.
The shelter itself can be missed if you're unlucky, as it can be placed anywhere within the tile, not necessarily near the border of the other biome, but once you've found the blood scapes it's just a matter of waling through the tile in a somewhat organized fashion.

In order to do the above successfully, you need to have a decent view of the overmap area covered, i.e. not all blank space, so you ought to seek out high vantage points to look around. Also, the search sessions ought to be done during daylight, which can be limited in winter. Also bring food for a fair number of days, as the search can take a while (and for worse ones, like the robber or animal in the forest cover quest you need to bring more than a week's worth of supplies unless you're prepared to leave and get more). Since you're probably going to spend several days looking, you need shelter if the weather is bad, so the new post spruce one is probably useful (or you can build a traditional shelter, or sleep in a nearby village if there is one (assuming it's one where the inhabitants don't hate your guts)).

The great risk is to encounter the animal and get attacked: I've lost several characters that way.

[Tinker]

Notoriously difficult at times, not as impossible as the bird thief quest. I found the shelter 3 times and gave up about 10 times.

I always assumed it was near the centre of the target area but that may not be correct. I have had more success since I discovered that the location description seems to lose something in translation, what I read as north of some sort of terrain means in fact south of that terrain, or east, or west are mixed up. So I was always looking at the wrong side of a tile.

Once you find bloodscapes it is near the centre of that square and once you find it then it will show up on the zoomed out map. You cannot find it or the bloodscapes when zoomed out.

[Pyry]

You've probably already completed or canceled the quest, but for future reference make sure to mark the tiles you've already explored. F6, then Shift A, then add a small note. This will help you easily identify the matching areas should you go through all of them and not find the shelter on a first sweep.

[JP_Finn]

Center of tile zoom-in, then maybe 5 tile radii circle, zoom out, repeat on next suitable tile.
And what Pyry said about marking them checked.

Most important bit for me personally is to outright refuse to help Spruce mire bordering/bordered by coniferous forest. Just no. I can't do this quest for several IRL hours.
Spruce mire bordered pine mire or heath (vice versa) are ok. Heath bordering Lichenous is my favorite 

[PALU]

My hands down favorite is anything (including spruce infested!) bordering a river. They're rare, but the reduction of possible target tiles is substantial.

[JP_Finn]

My hands down favorite is anything (including spruce infested!) bordering a river. They're rare, but the reduction of possible target tiles is substantial.

I’ve never got that variation. Maybe I should hang around Reemi more.

[PALU]

As I said, they're rare. I've gotten them two or three times over all the years I've played the game. I've got no idea where my characters were, but it makes sense for it to happen in areas with more water courses. And I don't think I've ever gotten one bordering a lake...

[Tom H]

These, you will find, are almost always simple to complete.

1st- Read the directions given and realize that he's saying his camp was IN ___ type terrain NEXT TO ___ type terrain.

2nd- Start your search as close to the center of the highlighted area (shown on F6). It isn't always centered but often enough it will be. Simply determine where the two terrain types meet, usually possible from the F6 view.  Pay attention to his instructions on whether his camp was north of, west of, etc, the other terrain type.

3rd- DO NOT start looking for the camp, itself. You are looking for either a BLOOD TRAIL, which means you are very close to the shelter, or the TRACKS of the guilty animal Bear/Wolf). From the blood trail, it is just a matter of tracking the blood trail into the terrain the shelter is in and keeping a sharp eye out for the marauding animal, just in case.
 
If you find the animal's tracks first, which is often the case, you can either follow them or backtrack on them, depending on whether you find them in the camp terrain or the adjacent terrain. I warn you, if you're in a thick forest, you can easily be surprised by the very animal. That's why I usually prefer to backtrack on his trail...heh.

Conduct your search in the more easily passable/visible terrain type of the two and you'll find the search is simplified. If the central start doesn't work, then you'll have the more arduous task of covering the entire search area. This you can do from the Strategic map, where you'll have to identify places where your two target terrain types meet.

If the search is long, you may get confused about where you have already searched. To avoid this confusion, you could lay out some tree branches before you go to the Strategic map to move on. Because the game always returns you to the place you left from on the local map, you'll easily know whether an area has already been checked. 

I bring food and water for a few days as sometimes I have to camp before completing the search. I hope you find this useful and that I've explained it clearly. Good luck!

[sofiaoluwato]

I have had more success since I discovered that the location description seems to lose something in translation, what I read as north of some sort of terrain means in fact south of that terrain, or east, or west are mixed up.

[PALU]

The description isn't mixed up in English, as far as I can tell. However, the wording is such that you can easily get tricked into mentally think it's reversed.

[Tinker]

Most messages in urw are not correct in English, at least to to pedants like me, even the weather reports are incorrect. The quest this refers to is wrong grammatically and thus leads to confusion for some people.

This fact that the post above is a direct cut and paste of a comment I made earlier, and it is a first post, should be more concerning about spam accounts.

[JP_Finn]

Most messages in urw are not correct in English, at least to to pedants like me, even the weather reports are incorrect. The quest this refers to is wrong grammatically and thus leads to confusion for some people.

This fact that the post above is a direct cut and paste of a comment I made earlier, and it is a first post, should be more concerning about spam accounts.

Unreal language is a little different?

And for 2nd part, the likely bot account is on Watchlist now. Any more bot like behavior and their posting rights will be restricted.

[Erkka]

Any more bot like behavior and their posting rights will be restricted. 

That didn't take long... The account did another reply by merely copy-pasting a clip from an earlier post in the thread. I restricted the posting rights by the one sure method; deleting the account.