You are much keener to look at potential universities next term than I am! I found with DS1 that he wasn't sure what subject he wanted to continue with until he'd been in studying A levels for a couple of terms. A lot of DC change their minds about what they love once the step up to A levels has sunk in and often change their A level choices in the first few weeks.
The course offered by different universities was fairly important to DS1. Some unis which looked good on paper didn't do the type of options he was interested in. So knowing which subject you want to do is a first step.
By two terms in you have a better idea of what grades are achievable. Even at the super selective I work in some DC aren't on course for all As no matter how hard they work and despite A*s in those subjects at GCSE, which will exclude some universities.
DS1 was on course for a mix of A and A* (to our surprise!) so he could narrow down his choices to around 10 universities to give him a good mix of offers to enable there to be a difference between firm and insurance choices. You don't want 5 offers all the same!
It will still be useful to look at a selection of unis to get a feel for their different ethoses and atmospheres and do look at the accommodation costs and options. Something DS1 got wrong was choosing as insurance a university that didn't guarantee university accommodation in the first year to insurance applications. This gave us a very nervous few months before results came out.
Obviously this is just my opinion. We managed to visit 10 universities open days in June/July of Y12 and Sept/Oct of Y13. Some with a parent in tow, some on his own by train or coach. School were happy to authorise absences for uni visits on weekdays. They arranged some visits themselves.
You will need to book your visit in advance in most cases. We found that if dates clashed in June/July we visited the other uni in Sept/Oct.