I want to learn a few basic acrobatic tricks. Where should I start? What should I learn? Any tips?

Gymnastics and acrobatics have a lot of similarities. In fact there is a branch of gymnastics called acrobatic gymnastics. I do think you should try to find a gym or tumbling class to join because it is way safer than trying to teach yourself and you will learn proper technique (which is safer as well as looking better and helps you to build up your skills.) You could also consider trampolining which will help your acrobatic technique. Any organized class also has the advantage that they will have proper safety equipment which will mean you can try stuff a bit more without having to actually get it right straight away. If you are just doing stuff on grass you pretty much need to land on your feet but with proper matting anything but directly on your head will probably not do any real harm.

You don't necessarily need someone of similar size to yourself to spot you. Spotters quite rarely actually have to support the full body weight of the person they are spotting. Spotting is often more about helping some one balance, as in a handstand or cartwheel. Even in harder moves the spotter is often only providing a little extra impetus to the rotation ensure that the gymnast gets past their head so that a smaller spotter can spot a larger gymnast. You could also use two people to spot, one either side. What it might mean is that you have to put more time in on progressions to show a coach you are ready to do an acrobatic move because they aren't going to want to take a chance like you might with a little kid you know you can pick out of the air.

You need to start off by learning a forwards-roll, which will give you a safe get-out if you over-balance from a handstand, which you also need to learn. You also want to learn as basics, backwards-roll, cartwheel and bridge. Once you can do that you have the rolling motion of going over your head forwards and backwards which you need for somersaults and which is useful to save yourself in a bad landing, the flexibility you need for handsprings and flicks, and the strength and balance in supporting yourself upside down on your hands. Someone significantly smaller that yourself can safely spot you for all of those if required.

Once you have those down you can learn a round-off and work on popping your shoulders to jump off your hands in a handstand. The next thing to learn then would be a handspring (forwards) at which point decent matting becomes really helpful and beyond which it becomes pretty necessary.

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I want to learn a few basic acrobatic tricks. Where should I start? What should I learn? Any tips?

So I'm interested in acrobatics.

Mostly, because I want to eventually be able to do a backflip, but also, because it just looks so cool. Also, a few of my friends are into parkour, and if I ever take that up, I can see acrobatics being VERY helpful.

I'm also a complete beginner.

So, my...