I love ALttP, but watching my wife on her first playthrough recently reminded me how frustrating it can be so my heart goes out to you. Heck, whenever I play again I put off swamp palace until nearly the end.

ALttP is also from that generation of games where you needed to talk to every NPC to figure out the hints and locations to sidequests and items. There are a number of bombable caves that you can access in either the light or dark worlds, as well as some that are accessible ones you're equipped with the gloves/mitts. Some others are accessible if you go to the dark world and get into position to transition back to the light world in a spot you couldn't reach from the light world alone, like getting to the Tower of Hera.

I think a nice middle ground for you might be the ALttPR tracker. It's made for the randomizer, but the chest locations are all the same (it's just their contents that get shuffled) so you'll have a visual representation of where items can be found but you can still work through getting to them on your own without spoilers.