Just after the sun sets, in the Northern Hemisphere, when the first stars become visible, 3 of the earlierst stars to appear are Vega, Deneb and Altair. They form the Summer Triangle. I use them as a starting point for star hopping as these 4 stars span a large part of the evening sky … in the summer.

The Summer Triangle can be seen as a right-angled triangle. Vega is the star in the right angle, Deneb is the star at the end of the short side and hence Altair is the star at the end of the long side.

Do not let yourself be misled by the planets though. Venus, Mars and especially Jupiter are much brighter than any of the stars. They are visible long before the stars if they rise above the horizon.

From here

As you can see on the map below, the easiest constellation to discover is Lyra. If you have a telescope, you might even want to try and find the Ring Nebula M57.