What I'd like to understand is the broad practicalities/real-world privileges conferred by a bog-standard PPL
Bacon sarnie run. On good weather days.
and which parts of the world you might want to use it
Well, if you're on holiday somewhere interesting the simplest thing to do is rent a plane
with an instructor. You do the flying and look out the window, the instructor does the boring admin and nav and foreign language RT. Of course you don't need any sort of licence for that.