Also, you really don't have to travel to realize that life can be different elsewhere. In fact, if you're going for an out-of-touch idealized belief, not traveling is almost a benefit: see "Paris syndrome".
I think you sort of do, or at least I did.
I like to think I realized quite well that life could be wildly different throughout the world - it's what motivated my initial travels.
Hearing about how the Netherlands does transit vs. actually feeling and experiencing it immersed over a month of living there is just an entirely different level of understanding.
In this example I went from thinking the NL style transit is pretty neato, to now thinking that transportation is one of the most fundamental pieces that forms a society and it's future. It's not just energy and moving mass around. Get transportation wrong and you will fundamentally break society in unexpected ways.