Addicted to my SmartPhone and Too Many Options

Dear Clever Traveler,
My husband and I are planning a trip, and he wants to go someplace where I won’t get any coverage on my Blackberry. I’m addicted—I know that—and I’d like to do what my husband wants, but I don’t know if I can handle that.
Addicted to my SmartPhone…

Dear Addict,

We all know the ugly fact: Like Pavlov’s rats, we respond to the sound of a bell. The Blackberry, iPhone, droid—we are in their power. We are no better than heroin addicts; our affliction is merely more mainstream. We are in their power, and we can’t resist. We twitch like junkies whenever we hear an aberrant sound, and our hand flies to our pockets. “Did I take it off mute after my meeting?” “Do I have any bars?” “I haven’t heard from my dog walker/therapist/plumber/cable installer—is it their phone or mine?” “Where’s my charger?”

If we’re honest with ourselves, there are very few calls that someone else couldn’t handle. (Do we really need to talk about trust issues?) Going off the grid is not what it used to be. For most of us, getting no email on our phones is just a little too Laura Ingalls Wilder.

We have all had the experience of our phones going off-line for an hour or two. At first, we panic. Then there’s resignation.  And finally, we have a heady feeling of release, like the earth fell away. No one can call. No emails demand our attention. No IMs. No texts. Ahhhh, you can hear the birds. Your shoulders relax and you fall back onto the couch. It’s a snow day.

We are all so engaged these days that we don’t have a free moment. If we don’t have constant input, we think we’re not needed. But let’s consider the question: is it necessary for us to feel needed every moment, or is there a freedom that we’re missing? Are we all just attention junkies? Hello? (Hello, can you hear me now?) Of course we are.  We need beeps, tweets, and rings, all going off in near proximity to our bodies at every moment of the day and night. Stillness means we’re not needed.

For those of you who are genuinely saving lives, God love you—you need a few days off. You need those hours of freedom without a voice that calls to you day and  night. Lose those fetters for a few days. We need you to save our lives, but maybe, just for a while, someone else can do it.

And here’s what you can do with those days. Skinny dip, bake in the sun, do a shot of Patron. Meet some people and tell them you’re a dancer, leaving them to make of that what they will. Hang out with a whole bunch of people you’ve never met before and make up outrageous stories about your past. Rent a boogie board and get out in the waves. Call your mom and genuinely listen when she talks about her past. Tell people honestly what you think about them and be generous. Limbo. Live the moment. You don’t need an app for that.

Fill in the blank… “I have always wanted to__________.” Now do it. It bears repeating: live the moment. Don’t tweet, IM, email, or dread the next text. In fact, totally forget the next text; instead, live
your life. Now, think about this. If your husband  is asking you to go somewhere where there are only the two of you with no interruptions, maybe you should pay attention.

Dear Clever Traveler,
I will be traveling in Europe—3 countries in 3 weeks. I want to be able to stay in touch with my family and office, but I can’t decide among a cellphone, computer, or phone cards—I don’t know where to start. I don’t want to spend a fortune. Can you help?
Too many options

Dear Options,

It can be a little mind-boggling when you start looking at all the ways we can communicate while on the road. One possibility is to take an unlocked cell phone and buy SIM cards in each country you visit, but there are minuses involved with that.  First, your US cell phone is probably locked, meaning that the company you contract with blocks you from using other providers. You can find unlocking solutions online, but doing so will violate your contract and usually your warranty.

Or, you can buy a disposable cell phone when you arrive at your first destination and then use new SIMs in each country. However, that gets expensive, and you can end up spending hours in line at the cell phone store.

Phone cards can be a great value that has the advantage of being available at the newsstand on the corner. But, since hotels will usually charge a per-minute fee for using a card, you’ll spend a lot of time in a phone booth—in the rain, naturally.

After having tried all these options, my choice when visiting several countries is to bring my laptop and use Skype. It’s easy to find a wireless connection—even small towns have an Internet café where you can log on. Bring earbuds so you don’t have all the people in the café listening to every word of your conversations. They don’t need to hear, “Honey, remember tomorrow is garbage day.”

This option works best for you since you’re only talking to your family and office. Have everyone load Skype before you go—and practice if you’ve never tried it. Bring your laptop charger; take a look at the charger to make sure it’s dual voltage (100-240 volts). You will need a plug converter. Use the following site to see the plug configurations in the countries you’ll be visiting: http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm

One of the bonuses of bringing your laptop is the ability to download your photos at the end of a sightseeing day. Bring a card reader that you can use in the USB port on your laptop. Insert the memory card from your camera and download your photos into a new file in your documents, or upload them to a photo site online—Kodak.com or photobucket are good. That way your family can look at your photos realtime as you travel. Be sure to edit your photos as necessary since you don’t really need your parents marveling over the number of steins you hoisted at the Hofbrauhaus.