Staying solitary
Many Wiccans today practise alone, and solitary practice has been common since the late 1980s. It isn't a waiting room for a coven. Its real challenges are different ones: no external structure, nobody to check your reasoning, and a slow drift into whatever you already believed. Reading widely and writing things down are the usual correctives.
Covens and groups
Groups range from initiatory covens with training structures and oaths, through open circles and Pagan moots, to informal friends who mark the Sabbats together. Initiatory traditions typically expect a period of study, often a year and a day, and involve commitments worth understanding before you make them.
Meeting people safely
Sensible baseline: meet in public first, tell someone where you're going, and take your time. Serious warning signs are consistent across groups: pressure to keep secrets from people outside, any suggestion that sexual activity is required, fees that escalate, discouragement from reading other sources, and a leader who can't be questioned. A good group will be relaxed about all of those questions.
Evaluating what you read
Useful questions for any book, video or post: does it distinguish history from folklore from modern practice? Does it name sources you could check? Does it say 'traditions vary' anywhere? Does it admit uncertainty? Does it need you to believe it's the only correct Wicca? Confidence is not evidence, and beautifully designed content is not evidence either.
Common dubious claims
Recurring ones worth recognising: that Wicca is an unbroken ancient religion surviving in secret; that nine million witches were executed; that the witch trials targeted practitioners of a surviving pagan faith; that the eightfold Wheel is ancient in its current form; and that any given tradition is 'the original'. Each of these is contradicted by mainstream historical scholarship. Modern Wicca is interesting enough without them.
Where this app stops
Pretty Little Wiccan is an introduction with its sources shown and its uncertainties marked. Beyond it: academic history for the historical questions, practitioners' own writing for how traditions actually work, and your own notes for what any of it means to you.