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Surviving Without Wi-Fi Abroad: My Digital Detox In Cuba

Caribbean, Thoughts, Travel |

What do you mean there’s no wifi?

Have you ever done a digital detox? Have you ever considered doing one, but the demands of daily life and the tempting availability of technology at every turn have made it seem impossible?

A vacation in the sun is the perfect time to recharge your mental batteries and turn off your phone. With no work commitments, responsibilities or people to answer to, why not make the most of your holiday and really unwind? When you’re in a country with basically no wifi, you won’t have a choice, and this can be a good thing. That’s exactly what I experienced when I was in Holguin, Cuba.

I went on holiday for two weeks and ignored the internet the entire time

Why you should do a digital detoxA few weeks on and with blog posts and work to catch up on, I’m well and truly re-toxing, but my digital detox in Cuba did me the world of good.

Most of us spend a huge portion of our days immersed in the online world, and it felt good to unplug and remind myself about the flesh and bones of my life.

I read actual books with pages! Not even on my kindle! Each day for an hour or two I would settle myself at the pool with a cocktail and devour the words of John Green, Amy Poehler and Cheryl Strayed. If you haven’t read Wild yet, do it now.

Cheryl Strayed Wild holiday read

I tucked heartily in to my meal without making everyone at the table freeze while I instagrammed our plates. I enjoyed my holiday wholly, without checking to see how many likes my check-in at the beach had accrued. I sat around tables, sipping cocktails with a laughing group of tanned faces and not one person was distracted by their phone. Nobody was absent from the conversation, because none of us had their hands full of too much information to ignore.

I lay next to my boyfriend and talked about life and everything under the sun, instead of gazing at our phones, each in different worlds.

I woke up to sun flooding through the curtains and after a few days, stopped instinctively reaching for my phone under the pillow. It wasn’t there.

Slowly, I got used to being free. I left my phone in the hotel room for entire days and nights, unsure as to where exactly it was even located inside the room. Under the bed? In the suitcase? Who cares.  I was too busy enjoying my holiday to notice. Without my phone glued to my hand, I was able to relax.

Do you know how liberating it feels to leave home without your phone and not feel naked when you realise you’ve left it behind? Okay, at times I felt like the worst travel blogger in the world for not staying current, but everybody needs downtime.

Some things don’t need a filter to take your breath away

Cuba without wifi

I was watching a water ballet performance one night and looked up and see the moon, which an hour ago had been full and fat, slowly eclipse. Without my daily perusal of twitter’s trending hashtags, how was I to know there was a momentous occasion scheduled in the sky that night? The surprise made it all the more astounding.

Without the endless deluge of information that I didn’t ask for, I could focus on the stuff I did ask for. The people I was with, the sun and the culture.

When you’re forced to be in the moment, you notice all of life’s little pleasures.

Cuba lizard

The truth is, nobody needs to be connected 24/7, no matter how busy and important you are. I think it’s particularly important to spend some time away from the internet when you’re travelling – you don’t need wifi in paradise. Remember, paradise isn’t always a destination. Sometimes it’s just chilling with your loved ones, being present and connected to each other rather than everyone else on the planet.

From now on, I’m going to take a leaf out of my dad’s book and take great delight in being unreachable now and then.

During my digital detox, I realised how much we had come to rely on the internet, and it made me kind of sad.

Things we actually need the internet for today:

  1. Geography. How would we ever get to where we need to be without Google Maps?
  2. Languages. I struggled with my basic grasp of Spanish while I was in Cuba. I think it’s important to at least make an effort to speak the local language when you visit another country, and having a translator in your pocket definitely helps. Who wants to be that annoying girl carting round a phrase book?
  3. Telling your mum that you’re alive. I was met with a torrent of frantic texts from my mum when my plane landed and I turned my wifi back on. It’s hard to get over the guilt that comes with fleeing civilisation, even if you have warned everyone to expect it.
  4. Settling arguments about whether or not certain celebrities are dead yet. 
  5. Immediate updates on actual, groundbreaking news.

Now don’t get me wrong, I stayed at a resort on an all-inclusive package. Everything was done for me. Had I been backpacking and moving every few nights, I would have found being without wifi much harder. This really embarrasses me, because when I went backpacking for three months a few years back, I didn’t even take a smartphone, because I didn’t have one. I just went with it.

Then again, I had a hands-on travel companion who didn’t mind doing all the planning so I guess I would have struggled had I been on my own.

I returned from Cuba feeling like I really had had a good break. I’d eaten raw sugar cane that a Cuban farmer had hacked from his plantations, I’d swam in the Caribbean Sea and I’d spent some time indulging in food, drink and laughter with Tom.

When I logged on upon return to the UK, scientists had found water on Mars. I felt a surge of anxiety wash over me as I stood at the baggage carousel in Manchester airport. Had I put myself at a disadvantage to the rest of the virtual world by going AWOL for two weeks? What else had happened while I was off the grid? Was there some cool new social network I wasn’t on yet, and now everyone was hanging out there without me?

Nah. Life went on.

Do you think that internet access changes how we experience the world on our travels? Have you ever done a digital detox yourself, or would you consider it? I’d love to hear your views in the comment section.

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Comments

  1. When I was in Cuba we had no choice but to not have any internet or phone signal. I actually loved the break! Thankfully Havana was easy to navigate, and the locals all spoke good English!

    C x | Lux Life

  2. Loved this! I always think I absolutely cannot cope without wifi when I go abroad when actually, it’s such a relief. So nice to just take a complete break. LOVED Wild by the way, such a great book x

  4. This is a very important message. I think we overuse internet (yes, even know as I was reading your post haha)

  5. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don’t necessarily think that you should be leaving you phone, laptop or tablet at home to distance yourself from the internet and technology. Especially being a travel blogger you need to have that connection there. I think people do need to distance themselves though and really enjoy a place they travel to or a party they go to. Instead of needing to take pictures and tag themselves their etc. just soak it up and enjoy the experience.

  6. I’m not sure I could last two weeks without Internet. I get anxious if it’s only been a few days. In saying that, I’m pretty good at not doing much when I’m actually on the road, so I feel that I’m detaching…a little.

  7. YESSSSSSSSSSS! I am literally leaping up and down punching the air at this right now! I feel so strongly about putting down your phone when you’re on holiday, it’s something I’ve always done. My first ever holiday with Simon we went to Greece and I mentioned to him about locking our phones away during the day and not touching them and he really wasn’t keen as he’s always been one to lounge around by the pool on his phone, but I managed to convince him and by the end of day one he was loving the time away from his phone!

    It’s annoying how reliant we all are on our phones, it makes me so sad when I go out for a meal and look around the restaurant to see everyone with their phones out on the tables, friends and couples ignoring each other with their noses buried in their twitter feeds.

    I just don’t understand how you can get the most out of your holiday if you’re constantly looking at your phone. We have friends who are on holiday at the moment and they’re CONSTANTLY updating Facebook with statuses and photos .. I have to stop myself yelling YOU’RE ON HOLIDAY! Oh and don’t get me started on our friends who went on Honeymoon and were all over Facebook .. how romantic!

    I could actually talk about this all day, so I’d best stop 😉

    Great post ..I hope everyone reads it and listens!
    x

    • Fabulous comment Chloe! I absolutely hate being in company when everyone’s glued to their phones, but since becoming more serious about my blog I’ve noticed I’m getting bad for it. It’s definitely good to step away! I’m glad you managed to persuade Simon too. I do have to admit I love a good facebook post to make everyone jealous but when you’re bombarding people, it’s just embarrassing! xx

  8. I currently live in Ghana and have almost daily power cuts, which means I automatically get internet detox whether I like it or not. As annoying as it is, sometimes I enjoy reading a book, rather than wasting hours on Facebook.

    • Ooh I bet that’s so inconvenient at times Tammy! But yeah, I bet it’s nice to have an enforced ban on the internet now and then. I think I’d secretly enjoy it too!

  9. I don’t mide being offline, but going away without my kindle would be much more difficult – I read too fast, and I never had enough books when I travelled with paper ones 🙂

    • That’s why I like that so many cities have started little libraries for travellers where you can leave a book in exchange for another pre-read one, it was a life-saver for me in Cuba!

  10. Digital detox might be a perfect idea, but not when it’s forced. I’m a full time freelancer and it sometimes really hurts me when I have no internet, because this might mean loosing work for me….I’m a translator and my clients usually expect me to answer to emails in several hours. Anyway, I still agree everyone needs offline time sometimes.

    • Yeah when your income depends on internet access, it’s a whole other story. I do think it’s good to ban yourself from time-wasting on social media though, even if you do work online. I waste far too much time on it!

  12. …”without making everyone at the table freeze while I instagrammed our plates.” This just made me laugh, because it’s exactly what I do!
    You’re right. I really need to take a vacation where I leave all electronics at home. Besides always worrying about whether or not my batteries will last, it’s just plain annoying to be so tied down to electronic gadgets when there’s so much to see and do. (But I don’t think I can leave the camera at home!)

  13. Very true. I recently spent a week in North Korea and the lack of internet did not bother me either. It is incredible how addicted we are to our phones but, without them, you realise what life used to be like

  14. This is a new buzz word. I am absoolutely in for this.
    Recently i did a 9 days trans himalayan trip and for 4 days there was no internet or mobile network. This was blissful.

    • That must have been some trip! Did you actually NEED the internet during any part of it?

  16. Wow, this post really blew me away. This is definitely true. I spent a week in China where there was literally no internet at all, and yet, didn’t miss it at all. We really should take some more time off from the internet.

  18. We had a digital detox in Cuba too! Unfortunately my aunty was having brain surgery so it was the worst timing. We did manage to get access to the outside world in Havana, Vinales and Trinidad. I read lots of books which was bliss! Maybe a slight exaggeration on the Cubans there – massive inequality in the country! They do have access to rations but most work and have the opportunity boost their income on renting rooms and taxi collectivos (which is not new, they’ve been doing it for decades, it’s just more do it now and the government allows it!) We met Cubans with a pretty decent standard of living from Havana all the way to Trinidad!

  19. I’ve done ‘digital detox’ before and it went okay. But then again I didn’t had a blog nor any social media accounts aside from facebook therefore it was easy. Nowadays I suppose I’d just limit my online life and enjoy life as usual 🙂

  20. I love this line! “Without the endless deluge of information that I didn’t ask for, I could focus on the stuff I did ask for.” I feel like the constant barrage of information I consume online everyday is exhausting and unnecessary. Our internet goes out pretty frequently where we live in Cambodia and I have to say, I’m not always mad about it. Instead of whiling away our night on facebook and reddit my partner and I talk and hang out, or read or write. Feels like a mini-vacation in a way!