So you're interested in getting your own free website, excellent. Funny enough, this is how I started out on the internet and look what has happened! Anyway, a free website is good because you can use it for many things. These include

a personal web page
trial business purposes
information for your club or group
discuss topics of interest (forum)
trial a new product
a family web page
plus many more!

The great thing about starting out with a free website is that their are many very good services online that you can get up and running with and which have excellent learning tools.

For instance, www.bravenet.com which is probably the largest and most well known supplier of free websites and hosting gives you 1.5 gig bandwidth, 50 meg of space and also many of the following features:

Absolutely No Setup Fees!
Unsurpassed Customer Support
Free Domain Names
Marketing Tools and Tips
Free Instant Content
Easy Website Builders
Clip Art, Audio Clips and Fonts
Over 500 Website Templates
Outstanding Industry Reputation

These types of sites are wonderful as the tools are all housed in one place thus allowing for a very quick learning curve.

For those who are really quick learners (the young and quick) unlike us old folk, there is plenty of other software solutions and free "html" editors available if you want to go more advanced.

Websites like:

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
http://www.homeworlds.com/freesoft/editors.htm
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

all offer great html, information, resources and advice.

What ever your taste, online is the place to be for learning, creating and keeping in contact with family and friends.

Have a great time and just remember, when starting out on the web most items and information can be sourced for free, it just a matter of looking around.