Avoiding white room syndrome

For those who don't know white room syndrome is when you have people who are talking or otherwise interacting in a seemingly undescribed place.

If You're a Star Trek fan imagine someone in the holodeck but there's no setting loaded.

This is something I really struggle with because I personally get really really bored when I'm reading anything and there's an excessive amount of detail on the physical place.

I love Tolkien but I cannot read Lord of the rings because of this issue in addition to others (I love The Hobbit is what I mean).

How do all of you avoid this? I tend to run into talking head syndrome pretty frequently. Actually that's probably the biggest single issue with my story.

I just don't know how to care about the physical place. I care about the people and I care about what they're talking about and I care about how they feel and what they think. I don't know how to care about that.