“Assimilating local culture” is always the same stuff: you meet happy people with nothing, happy people with something, and unhappy people with nothing, and unhappy people with something. Turns out that - besides food and the nuances of local politics - the whole world is the same mesh. There is not much else to see. I had better conversations in Michigan with immigrant Uber drivers in a 15 minutes ride than spending one week in their country.
For a while it was fun to “go with the flow”, ultimately after so many experiences I realized that it is not the place that made the experiences fun, but the mindset. By changing my mindset I had an equal amount of fun experiences in my hometown without having to travel hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Sure..I can say this now after traveling quite a bit, perhaps we can call it experience and wiseness.
The only thing that is truly memorable are the landscapes, and the things you see: temples, pyramids, you name it. But even then, I would say that sightseeing doesn’t really mean that there is any expansive mixing with the local population. It’s a sterile experience, so to speak.