There are some members who are giving away free hosting with cpanel and no ads (for life!). They even give good tech support. I am using one of those, and I will say that I am absolutely pleased with the hosting and also with its support service. Now if someone says that free hosting has a lot of headaches, then the paid hosting services are not 100% great either.
Get a domain from namecheap/godaddy... godaddy offers a heavy discount on the first year registration.
Wordpress is a feature of Softaculous which is integrated with the cpanel, and is very easy to install and use. You don't have to buy it separate... If you find blocks in doing it (installation or using) right, then our members will always help in guiding you from time to time.
Even if the free hosting service begins creating difficulties and barriers (this happens even with some of the paid hosts), then you can always opt for a better hosting, and the easiest way for you only need to point the nameservers to the new host, which is also an easy process.
As you're new to this field and possibly have very limited funds to spend on an experiment, this could help you get the much-needed self-training, and later on you can shift to better service providers if you wish so. Getting the experience of having your own domain and testing all the features of Wordpress is a big advantage while you spend less than 2 dollars on the domain name only (while the hosting is free).
P.S.:
Better to have separate providers for the hosting and domain name. I will tell you a reason:
Many years back, even before I joined BHW, I had won a .com domain name in a contest held by a UK hosting company. He created many difficulties for me to get the free domain name, but I still managed to get it. He was a domain name reseller so the domain name was in his control. Then a few months later, I found out that I wasn't able to log in into my account. I inquired but got no response. Then I complained on a forum about it exposing the host's name. Immediately I was told that he had sold off his business to another company, and that company was responsible about my domain getting jacked up... and any further open complaints about him or his service from me would invite a legal consequence. So that was the end to my first online dream! I lost the domain name as well as the hosting, and I've no doubt that the domain provider had lied to me, and I didn't know then anything about how to verify his words, or to take any other action...
You may not necessarily face the same, but why take risks? Don't have both controlled by the same provider, imo...
