I levelled my ranger fairly effortlessly by doing mostly heart quests. Now you’ll come to a point where you reach heart quests that are a little higher than your current level – at this point I usually use an asura waypoint (from Lion’s Arch) and warp to the equivalent-level area of another race and do those heart quests there (in my case I rotated between the human and norn areas). If you’re unsure of where to go, take a look at the maps and they are usually labelled with the appropriate level (the wiki helps too: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page).
In regards to finding new gear, when you complete the heart quests, talk to the quest giver with the heart symbol – most of the time they offer a piece of armour for that particular level for karma. (I wish I had knew about this earlier myself!)
No animals were harmed during the typing of this post.