quite clickbaity headline, one would expect author will say you should travel to meet and talk to the strangers/locals to experience local life, while the article suggest to visit your friends/acquaintances instead traveling for the destination, which sounds only a little bit less ignorant (still staying in her social bubble of most likely rich people) than her original approach being typical tourist not talking to anyone

when I traveled on shoestring talking to locals was inevitable, because that's your cheapest experience, you won't rent a car or private minivan, you use the cheapest bus like the locals, you don't dine in fancy restaurant tourist traps and few rich locals, you go to small hole in the wall restaurant where they never seen foreigner and don't have English menu, etc etc.

sadly smartphones destroyed a lot of this experiences with no need to ask locals for directions and various kinds of information you can find online, so you can stay in your bubble without talking to locals and if you limit your smartphone usage even locals find your strange since even they use them