In this decade it isn’t often we actually put our phones down for more than a few hours, whether it’s to answer emails, text friends for scroll social media most of us are guilty of spending more hours than we’d like to admit on our phones. As a blogger I have to say I’m probably guiltier than some at this but equally my full time job doesn’t allow me to check my phone whenever I please and I’m very thankful for that. But what about when you go on holiday? Do you pick you phone up more or less? I’m certainly someone who is snapping away on my phone to capture photos for Instagram stories or to make my friends jealous!
Except that I didn’t do that on our honeymoon to the Maldives. We decided before we even landed on our resort that we would put our phone away for nine days and do you know what it was so good for us. We talked more, we enjoyed each other’s company more, we took in the scene more and we stressed less. In day to day life it is hard to switch off the internet from your phone but on holiday it is so much easier and will have a much bigger impact.
Why you should go offline on your next holiday
I don’t know about you but social media isn’t always enjoyable, it’s a place where people over share or make their life look perfect. At it’s worst it’s full of complaining, negativity and unkindness, that’s not to say it doesn’t come with lots of positive vibes and an awesome community too. But trust me that will still be there even if you take a little break.
You’ll be more in the moment
I’m sure I’m not the only one who is guilty of seeing some of life’s big moments through a screen or lens rather than with our own eyes. As a photographer it’ll always be hard to get me to put the camera down but not having to take footage on both my camera and phone certainly helped me be in the moment more. I wasn’t distracted by scrolling Twitter or Instagram and could really take in the beauty of my surroundings and not miss when a shark or stingray swam past our villa.
The Travel Hack has a great post on taking photos but also remaining in the moment.
It will help you to relax
One thing I find I’m terrible at doing on social media is comparing myself to what other people are posting. These people are often people I think are similar to me but their content is so unrelatable and it makes me feel awful. I’ll start thinking that I’m rubbish, that I’m not enough this or enough that. Taking time away from social media helped me to be more content with me and relax. I read books, multiple books, had more in depth conversations and noticed more of the small details because I was relaxed.
You’ll have more conversations with the people around you
The one thing that lacks when people are glued to their phones is conversation. Ever sat at a table of bloggers? You’ll have experienced this multiple times then but even non-bloggers are guilty of this. We pretend like we are listening so often while also reading countless Instagram captions. By going offline we had so many more real conversations, conversations about a whole host of topics we’d never normally talk about. We spoke to the bar man, to the waiter to other people on the island. It was so nice to not be talking to someone who was staring at a screen the whole time.
You’ll notice more of the small details
Do you ever miss something because you’re too busy looking at your phone screen? Doesn’t really matter when you’re at home but when you’re on holiday you want to take in everything, even just the small details. During our honeymoon I took in so many of the small details because I felt like I had my eyes open all of the time not buried beneath a screen, I mean who wanted to miss a detail in the Maldives anyway?
Can’t go offline for the whole trip because you have small children at home (or similar) then have just an hour or so a day where you switch it on and spend the majority of your time outside off line.
Have you gone offline for a trip? Did you notice the difference?
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