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'HDRi handbook' would be a good place to start. There's more to it than you will be able to find on online tutorials
For Material = Choose V-ray HDRI as material map for diffused swatch, browse and load your saved hdri map, increase value for brightness
For environment = drag and drop same material chosen to environment tab (shortcut =8)
So, HDRI is high dynamic range image. This means that map created with HDRI for 3d rendering is having a lot of information of color and details in shadows, mid-tones and highlights. I think you asked how to create image itself and this is a rather long process even for explanation, but I will try to list some points that can be helpful.
1. You need camera that can take high resolution images preferably with raw image format to merge different exposures into hdr and then merge hdr to panorama. Actually you can even take shots on phone but in this case quality won't be satisfying
1.2. You will also need appropriate lens for shooting as much space around you as possible for instance 18mm Lens
2. You definitely need a tripod to place camera on it and take shots of surroundings.
3. Load taken images in photo editing software where you are able to edit them in HDR format and then stich in panoramic image. There are many different software on the web that can do this.
4. Export in HRD format and use as a map for your 3d software
