Another angle on this: I took 8 months off work, did lots of DIY, adopted two greyhounds, started walking them 20km+ per day. It has been life changing and yet I don't think I've been more than 50km from my house at any point during that time. So maybe life altering experiences happen because you alter your life, not change where your are.
I wouldn’t discount alternative environments for stimulating latent or dorment parts of a person, but you certainly have a good point about the perennial capacity for self transformation