They find me. Usually at the College and Dawnstar. (if that is wrong then it's because the current tv I am using isn't great for gaming)
I have hunted down a dragon on purpose those, ofr a bounty lol
Also, I was exploring as normal and saw the little dragon head thing and went towards it, you know, to find another thu'um and all. Well I came over the hill and a dragon was just sitting there, the tip of his tail twitching like a cats. I was like...... HOLYSHIT! I ended up getting detected and it was a fight to the death! I won, obiously :D
In the beginning I was looking for them, of course for the word wall. But now, not so much. If I see a dragon skull on my compass that hasn't been discoverd, i will definatly go to it. Boy that's gotten me into trouble. I always try the short cut, skimmin cliff walls etc. The funny thing is, when I get there, there's always a trail leading to it. haha!! Sometimes though you have to go through a cave to reach it. Well, I encoutered that once. Mainly I see/fight them when I fast travel. I need to chill on fast travel, but that's a whole nother blog.
So you ever hunt dragons and come across them already getting owned by something else? I was going after the wordwall for Frostbreath in that volcanic area south of windhelm. I hear the dragon but I don't see it. I get to the wordwall to learn frostbreath, and look down, and there the dragon is attacking a giant and a Mammoth. I'm ready to go charge down the hill to kill the dragon but the giant kills it first. I get down there and still absorb it's soul, but it wasn't me who killed it.
They usually find me, sometimes when I'm very carefully trying to avoid drawing the attention of a giant and his mammoths. Thaaanks, that's great.
I do go hunting for dragons (and dragon walls) when I see a dragon head marked on the compass. It may look weird for an adventurer walking down a path to suddenly stop and spin around in a complete circle but it's worth it.
I just found a map of dragon burial sites that uses Kynesgrove as a reference point. I don't know if I'll try to use it but I'm keeping the map just in case.
Just found a word wall there was a dragon there, dispatched of it then an NPC called Krosis pops out of a coffin, i'm AWMGNOWAI and proceed to play the "i'm behind this rock but you can't see me lol now you've given up and i'm sneaking behind you to shoot you" game that worked and I got a mask called Krosis.
But usually dragons seem to find me, thankfully i'm in a city most times and the guards help me out, being a sneaky character is such a disadvantage vs a dragon