There seems to a trend to a different approach to this type of question depending on whether you are from the US or the UK.
Generally speaking I was taught to fly around at around 2000-3000 feet as long as airspace and weather allows, and that's what I taught other people and generally what I do still.
This allows sufficient time in case an autorotation is required for a forced landing etc, but even at 3000 you are still going to be on the ground in about 90 seconds, having taught forced landings hundreds of times I know how altitude is critical for the outcome especially when people are not current with autorotations.
Deliberately flying at 500'-1000' when you don't have too seems to me to have far more con's than pro's, especially when you try to do a forced landing when you potentially only have 15-30 seconds before you are on ground to 1) enter auto 2) turn into wind 3) choose a field 4) mayday call 5) shutdown checks 6) engine off landing.
Actually in my current job we generally are outbound at 5000' and inbound at 4000' which gives 1) better fuel burn 2) better comms 3) keeps you above all the nonsense going on below you with people flying lower level 😄
My instructor told me "the higher you are, the safer you are" and generally I agree with him as long as you can get on the ground 5 mins max.