There might be some people who believes that people should visit museums to learn about a country, while others disagree the above idea. Both camps have their own reasons to support their views. If I had to choose one, I would say that visiting local market is better to know about a country. There are some examples and reasons as follows.
To begin with, visiting local market enables people to meet local peoples. Since local people are not likely to visit museums, it would be difficult to meet local people in there. However, people could see local people in some local markets, resulting in that it makes them to communicate with local and know about their life and culture. I think it is more beneficial for me to learn their country directly. Let me give a personal experience as a good example to explain my thought more clearly. When I went to Oman in the Middle-East a few years ago, I learned about their food and language in the local markets. When I asked for some advice to one local person in the market to buy some fruits for lunch, he explained the fruit taste and how to pronounce the name by Arabic. Moreover, he guided me to look around the market so that we got close each other and I could know many things about his country.
On top of that, visiting local market helps people to know the recent trend about a country. In particular, people could watch what the local people are wearing and what they are using now. This makes ones to learn about what they are liking in current time. For instant, when I visited London last summer, I went to one local market on Baker street. I saw a lot of local people bringing cloth bag when they visited the market. I found that the people had the cloth bag not to use plastic bags to reduce plastic materials.I learned about that using sustainable products was the hottest issue in the London. In contrast, I could not find what they are interested with when I visit museums. This experience remind me how effective visiting local markets is when I am traveling.
In sum up, I strongly believe that it is a good way to visit local markets in order to not only encounter local people, but also know about recent trend of the country. Given that the advantages far weigh the disadvantages, the importance of my perspective cannot be underestimated.