I was in Africa on business, and went on a guided bike tour of Soweto. That's 8,500 miles from Indiana; a long way in more ways than one. It was a humbling experience.
I did the same in Pune, India. Not quite as far mile-wise, but an even more foreign experience. Population density isn't a term I'd heard of, but in Pune the combination of poverty and population density was like a punch in the face.