The Immortal, the Universal, and the Continuous

When discussing nudity in art a professor once said that one of the more common reasons for nudity is to make the painting universal and timeless. Clothing depicts clearly what culture a character comes from, what class they come from, what era they come from, and even what time of day it might be. Paint your character in a dusky Middle Eastern skin tone and the character could come from any era from any culture from any class that is known to have existed. (There are a few extreme exceptions but the point holds.) Thus "The Creation of Adam" was painted. 
Likewise the setting a character is in can be era, culture, and class defining, or it can be as close to universal. Take a man and a woman in a cafe in a bustling city with horse dung on the streets and electric lights. You could guess with a fair amount of success who will be there, what they are wearing, and where they are in the world. However if a man and woman stand in a small clearing in a scrub forest what do you know about their era? their culture? their class?  It is a universal setting. 
This type of setting has benefits and problems. On the one hand the author is less constrained and if there is no reason to the writer need not expand on these details of class, culture, and era. On the other hand if these details are pertinent the writer must put in quite a bit more world building to bring them to light in these universal settings.

What is your favorite setting?  Is it something specific or more universal?