{"id":98880340,"date":"2015-02-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/travel-trends\/the-joys-of-traveling-unplugged\/"},"modified":"2018-10-26T03:58:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T07:58:37","slug":"the-joys-of-traveling-unplugged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/the-joys-of-traveling-unplugged\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joys of Traveling Unplugged"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

When it comes to living in the 21st century, there\u2019s probably no odder feeling than to be without your smartphone. Whether it\u2019s lost, broken, or just in an area that doesn\u2019t have service, you\u2019ve more than likely felt that ethereal disconnect of not having a working phone at some point or another. Usually, the separation only last a few days, a week at the most, but last summer I found myself with a non-working phone just hours before I got on a plane to Scandinavia and thus (thanks to my service provider needing at least three days to mail me a replacement) wound up spending my entire trip digitally detached. And it helped transform my trip into one of the best traveling experiences of my life.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be anti-technology to believe that people can be too attached to their smartphones. According to a 2012 survey<\/a>, 73% of smartphone owners who were asked admitted that they would feel \u201cpanicked\u201d if they lost their phone and nearly 60% confessed to checking their phones once every hour. That\u2019s fine for going about your regular daily life, when your phone can be a welcome distraction from monotony, but all that focus on the tiny screen can lead to missing out on taking in the sights, sounds, and experiences of a new place.<\/p>\n

Traveling sans smartphone actually forced me to take in my surroundings. Instead of burying my head down to check messages at every quiet moment, my eyes were up and observing everything around. I actually engaged with people and chatted up strangers when I felt shy, instead of scrolling through my email. When I got lost, I asked for directions or used a map \u2014 both of which gave a better sense of place than just following a GPS app\u2019s turn-by-turn directions. And I didn\u2019t worry about what all my friends were doing on Facebook, because I was too busy focusing on what I was doing at that very moment.<\/p>\n

As much as phone manufacturers would like to claim otherwise, you CAN survive in the modern world without a smartphone. There are still payphones out in the world and in some regions they even take credit cards (although you might want to pack a prepaid calling card to be safe)\u2026in case you want to actually make a phone call. And if you feel the need to check social media, write an email, or look something up online, pretty much every guidebook includes where to find internet cafes and libraries.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is a downside to traveling without a smartphone. Since everyone now pretty much just uses their phone\u2019s camera, so if you don\u2019t already have a digital camera you might want get one to capture memories and moments while traveling without a smartphone.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll just have to wait until you get home to upload those pics to Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to living in the 21st century, there\u2019s probably no odder feeling than to be without your smartphone. Whether it\u2019s lost, broken, or just in an area that doesn\u2019t have service, you\u2019ve more than likely felt that ethereal disconnect of not having a working phone at some point or another. Usually, the separation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98880340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98880340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98880340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98880340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98898129,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98880340\/revisions\/98898129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98880340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98880340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onetravel.com\/going-places\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98880340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}