Great time to buy Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion - fees are low, and the narrative is dumping a bit. Here's a couple of observations on how to do this:

1- Get to know your local Meetups/Bitcoin community. Typically cities I'm in have a Telegram group that is fairly active though some people have started creating smaller SimpleX groups. There's usually a set of community organizers that would know what's going on - you could search for a local BitDevs chapter, or Bitcoin on Meetups.com. But in practice, the way to short-circuit is to meet somebody in the community and get warm intros for wherever you travel. If I'm DMed here, I'm happy to make intros for certain cities, mostly in North America.

Telegram groups would have the benefit of searching for reviews and being able to ask for people to vouch for sellers. Though ofc, Telegram isn't great for security etc. (not end-to-end encrypted by default, group chats are probably sitting in a server somewhere in a pile), so maybe delete and reinstall whenever you need. If you can attend a physical meetup, that's always best, and you can meet and ask people if they're willing to sell sats. Generally, most people don't, but there are usually a few people running businesses and/or living on a BTC standard that will sell relatively large amounts. You can find 1-2 of those people and be good for those cities.

2- https://btcmap.org/ has Bitcoin merchants listed who will take Bitcoin. While not preferable to the above option, if you really can't find liquidity, it's worth both 1) going to those businesses and buying stuff and 2) maybe asking if they're willing to sell for cash. There are ATMs as well, including some cities with Lightning ATMs which have pretty low fees, though those should generally be your last resort due to the high fees and batch sending (also, ATMs may have a camera somewhere nearby).

3- It's worth developing a "ritual" and having lots of different on-chain/Lightning wallet options for receiving. What I've observed, is that the buyer/seller usually agree on a reference for price, who takes on the fees, and then the seller sends after the buyer shows they have the cash on hand, and then the buyer gives the cash. Aqua Wallet, your own Lightning node, and Cake Wallet (silent payments) are good options, depending on your own tradeoffs on privacy, on-chain/off-chain. Lightning is vastly preferred, mostly because you don't want to stand around waiting for confirmations.

4- Keep in mind your physical safety - have a preference for meeting in public spots. Next to a well-frequented public transit station, for example. This is one reason why physical Bitcoin events work well as well - safety in numbers, and unlikely people will try sketchy things with a lot of Bitcoiners around.