Oh, hello there!
Did you think I dropped off the face of the digital earth? I kinda did.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that during a recent (ok, not that recent) trip to Amsterdam, I just disappeared. One day I’m posting Insta stories of Dutch pancakes and sharing pretty canal photos, and suddenly…. Bam! I’m gone.
Well, not bam so much as splash.
I dropped my phone in the toilet of the Anne Frank House.
Yes, really.
As I stared down at my phone sinking to the bottom of the (luckily clean) toilet, I didn’t feel any sense of panic or stress about the actual piece of tech equipment. What I did feel was an instant disconnect. I’m a constant phone cradler. I always have my phone in my hand, or at the very least in my pocket (which is how this whole accident happened.) How would I get through at least 3 days without posting to Instagram, scrolling through Facebook, emailing or texting?
It turns out… very easily.
So that’s how I started a sudden, full-on digital detox. That was 2 months ago, and I’m just now starting to resurface on social media. I enjoyed the peace of a few low-tech days so much that I’ve been slow to dive back in.
In full disclosure, I did have my laptop with me so I still had plenty of access to all my usual social media and email… but without the constant presence of my phone, the pull just wasn’t as strong.
Those few phoneless days were enough to let me reevaluate the role tech and social media has on my travel style, and the role want it to have.
Now, real talk, I’m never going to be a tech-free traveler and I’m never going to fully disconnect. I don’t even want to. Technology and the internet give me a ton of freedom. As an Etsy shop owner and a freelance writer, staying connected is a priority. It’s the reason I’m even able to travel and do this whole expat thing. More importantly, I like it. Scratch that… I love the internet. As someone who grew in those long, long ago pre-internet days when we chanced into restaurants without reading a dozen reviews and grumbled over refolding paper maps after planning our route, I’ll never not be amazed at all the cool things the internet can do (yesterday I ordered pizza delivery while watching luggage reviews on YouTube while on the treadmill at the gym…. I mean, what time to be alive).
But, being active on social media, and using tech tools to make travel easier, doesn’t mean I need to be glued to my phone. I feel like I was starting to scoot across that line.
Here’s how I’m realigning . As with all things, it’s all about balance.
Rest the mind, body and soul
Truth time…. I am not good at relaxing vacations. My husband can chill out in a hammock for hours and lounge on the beach sipping frozen drinks all day. I cannot. I need to keep my body and my mind busy. In quiet moments, I often find myself reaching for my phone. It’s a crutch… a way to fill the time and my thoughts when I should be letting my brain have some peace. Still, travel is a break from the everyday and it should be restorative, whether that means literally resting or feeding the soul through new experiences. But, you can’t fully relax and rejuvenate while looking at a screen, reading depressing news stories or taking in someone else’s Facebook drama. On future trips, I’m taking more opportunities to watch the sunset, read books with no redemptive value, sleep in, get the longer massage. I’m going to put devices down and take a deep breath.
Savor the moments
Whizzing down the highway or crawling down country paths, there’s a world of scenery outside the car window, but I’ve missed so much of it. Spring lambs jump around a field while crumbling castle ruins stand watch over the landscape and I have my head down, popping bubbles and matching colors on the 764th level of some game I can’t even remember the name of. I’m unimaginably lucky to have seen so many parts of our world, and I’ve worked hard to create these experiences. So why am I wasting so many moments? From now on I’m trying harder to use tech as a tool to aid the journey, and not let it become a distraction from it. That means leaving my phone zipped into my bag (it’s safer there anyway)… or even better, in the safe in my hotel room. Not every time, but occasionally. If I’m leaving my phone tucked away while wandering a museum or ambling around the city I’m better able to soak in the art or take in the beauty of an unexpected side street. Sure, I might not get a pic of my latte and my Facebook friends might not see that I’ve checked in to a cool spot, but hard-to-come-by moments deserve to be experienced in the full.
Connect with people
My hubs and I reminisce about things we’ve done and places we’ve been together on a near-daily basis. Last night we chatted about that time we were in Jamaica during the summer Olympics and the whole country went nuts for Usain Bolt (there were seriously cell phone commercials that encouraged you to “party like a track star”). We are forever talking about the time we went glamping at the San Diego Zoo and the elephants woke us up in the morning. You know what we never talk about… the time we scrolled through our Instagram feeds on the deck of a boat in the Pacific Ocean or the time we checked our email during a fancy-smancy dinner in Amsterdam (and we are totally guilty of both).
We have busy schedules (who doesn’t) and we don’t get enough time together. Same deal with all the people we love. Traveling together – with whoever – is such a cool experience and a time to reconnect and build on relationships. I don’t just want to be present in the place, but also present with my people.
We’re making it a priority to put phones away during meal times and to keep the hotel TV turned off. We’re also using train rides and layovers for conversation, instead of zoning out to movies. We’re choosing people over pixels.
Find the balance
The beautiful thing about tech is how easy it makes travel. I cannot begin to image trying to road trip through Ireland without GPS (did you know that loads of places in Ireland don’t have numerical addresses and there are no zip codes?) Turn-by-turn directions, itineraries and reservation info in my TripIt app, inspiration on Instagram and helpful tips in TripAdvisor… there are so many handy tools on my smartphone and I’m not sure I would know how to travel plan without them.
As a freelancer, I’m never going to leave my laptop at home while I hop on a plane. That’s just part of the deal with my lifestyle and career. For my husband, he needs to keep an eye on his email and be able to take conference calls from time to time while away. We are keenly aware that the devices are that allow us to do that are the reasons we can travel, and we are grateful for that.
But, I am learning to find the balance. For me, it’s about separating the valuable from the distractions and holding myself accountable for my digital consumption.
And maybe it should also be about not sticking my phone in my pocket, because that how this all started… twice. Yep, I’ve now sacrificed two phone in 2 years to public potties… I’m a slow learner.
What do you do to keep tech from taking over your travel? Have you done a digital detox?
Pin Me:
