I am into Meshtastic but the coverage, at least in Italy, is low and depends a lot on the position. If you are in a city, you can get many neighbors nodes, otherwise you need to be at high altitude, relying on other nodes or use a directional antenna.

Anyway, it's a nice hobby to learn a lot about solar powered systems and antennas/propagation.

I think that one of the best use cases for Meshtastic is to use it during protests, especially in authoritarian countries.