I can't imagine playing
without random encounters. Different strokes I guess. I use random encounters in much the same way as
@Charlaquin does. I use to emphasize time as a resource and, additionally, the need to not waste that resource in hostile environments. People have very different approaches to what a random encounter is too. For some DMs it's more of a straight wandering monster check, and for others there's a huge range of what might happen, from strange sounds, to random debris, to monsters. I favor the second approach, it's like the salt and pepper flavor text for a whole location. YMMV.