Living in San Antonio, I have tons of gravel in the surrounding Hill Country. Unfortunately, I live IN San Antonio, so to ride to the Hill Country would take a couple hours in each direction minimum. Because of this, I mostly use my gravel bike in its commute/touring mode to commute and do long comfortable rides here in town. I will take off all the commute stuff and switch to my tubeless gravel wheelset every once in a while to do an all day gravel ride with friends and co-workers, and for those rides I drive to the start point.
For me I am fine with this. I bought my gravel bike to replace a commuter bike that was destroyed when a car hit me while riding to school. I didn't have much intention of riding "epic" gravel at that time, but I did ride my bike to the local single-track here in town sometimes back when I still commuted on gravel/cx tires.