Sometimes a game circles back around to an earlier place. For whatever reason the PCs need to (or should) go to somewhere they've been before. There can be a lot of reasons for that so I'm going to avoid all of those.
Going back depends on what kind of location it is and what happened when the PCs left. HOW they left is also important. Because believe it or not the game world keeps going on while they're off adventuring.
Not every game has the world spinning on. Module games and leagues tend not to revisit what happened in the past it seems. Everything is looking forward. But if you can get a game going where the PCs are part of the world - not the center of it - then things can get interesting.
What brought this to mind was a session of a game I'm running where the PCs needed to return to the place they left their mounts. They even said that they needed to go back. What that did was close their encounters into a circle. Some players can find it distressing to think that they haven't "advanced" as they're in a place they've already "finished".
This can be a problem. It really can. If they've already thoroughly cleared out the area of monsters and treasure then there's nothing for them to do unless there's been a deus de magister ludi where things get reset so they can clear it out and get more treasure. Which is circular in its own way.
If they started out in a large city then it's a lot easier to get them interested in more things to do from the same hub. There's a lot of spokes from a hub of that size. Drop some plot hooks and see which ones interest them. This type of circling back is probably the least problematic of circling back around because there's always new stuff to do.
It can get kind of weird when they revisit a smaller location. This is where the concept of how they left comes into play. If they ran out in the middle of the night after breaking up the inn then they're not going to be very welcome. In that situation the GM should pay attention to how the players think about how they'll be received when they return. It will show if they think their actions have lasting consequences.
Some players don't want the world to keep going. They want to stop the story when it isn't about them. Some players want the immersive game where things progress and grow without them. That's something for Session Zero and to monitor as the game proceeds.
What do you do when the PCs are in an area where they don't want to be anymore? Or the situation doesn't interest them? That's a tough one. Finding new and interesting things for the PCs to do can be a strain on the imagination. There's only so many monster lairs out there in their general vicinity.
Since this is my sandbox game I know what I'm going to toss out there. One player has already started pulling out the plot hooks I gave them before they chose this one so they can discuss what they want to do. My guess is that they'll go back to the large city after dropping off the villagers they rescued (by accident) in the smaller town. Then we've all got the options necessary to keep the game going.
I admit some of this is my fault. We're using an existing setting and there's some issues with it. Once you get away from the coast where almost all the modules and fiction have taken place things are spread out. There's a lot of road/water to cover between areas. And there's only so many random encounters you can pull out of the GM trick bag before it gets to be quite frankly boring.
So what's the answer to when PCs are back where they started and may feel like everything they did was a waste of time? There isn't one answer. It's something that has to be handled by the players and the GM. Every group is different and wants different things from their game. Pay attention to the player reactions when they know they're heading back to a "finished" location and adjust the game if needed.
By nature RPGs have adventurers. They want to get out and about. Sometimes it happens that they never do return to a previous location or things are so changed that it's an entirely new place. Sometimes they get attached to a place and keep going back on their own. And sometimes it's a plot narrative that gets them there. Each one requires that the GM understand what they enjoy and what they don't.
I haven't touched on what the GM likes to do in this post. That's for a separate post because while the GM is the guiding hand in the game they're also a player. People tend to forget that last part.
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