Experience of Traveling Without Smartphone
Deepti - the nostalgic Hobo
What will happen if you start living a life without a smartphone? You will be devoid of checking your phone on every few seconds. You will be devoid of knowing all the Facebook updates. Last but not the least, you will be devoid of lisenting to the constant beeping sound of your phone. And what do you discover? Voila! You discover the true ‘you’ which went into hibernation few years ago. You realize that life is pretty easy if it is ‘minus’ the Smart phone. Here is the story of Deepti Khera, who just unplugged herself from the technological world for 5 days and the result was - she realized the passionate traveler within herself.
Unplugging herself from the world called 'technology'
Deepti was never in favor of social media. However, because of constant coaxing from her friend circle she ended up buying one Smartphone for herself. Its result was pretty predictable. Soon, she was addicted to the social media like Facebook. WhatsApp became her immediate point of contact. As a result, she started suffering from ‘nomophobia' - the fear of losing or not having a phone.’
So, instead of falling more in love with her Smartphone, Deepti decided to get back to the days when meaningful conversations existed without the virtual world. She decided to go for ‘no-phone’ zone for a week. She packed her bag and started off on a journey.
Looking forward to the 'unknown' destination
Her first day on this trip started with a train journey. Though she carried her phone for emergency calls, she switched it off to convince herself about the existence of world without the phone. During this journey, she met an old lady of 60 years. Her conversation with this lady reminded her of the childhood memories that she shared with her grandmother. Soon she realized that "Maybe, If I had been with my phone or laptop watching a TV show, I would not have even paid attention to who she was.”
In her second day schedule, she switched on her phone just to convey her details to her brother. After that, her only guide for the trip was she herself. She reached her destination, had a nice dinner with her brother and spent rest of her evening by reading and writing her travel diary. And the best part is the next day she could wake up early morning even without putting the alarm on her mobile. This made her realize that ‘staying away from technology’ is possible.
The happy me - Deepti
Her third day went on by attending some cultural events where she caught a few marvelous performances. Moreover, she spent the entire day without realizing that her phone was not with her.
Soon, the fourth day started. But by now she was already tempted to use the phone. Her mind was constantly tempting her to switch on the phone. She explained "My mind told me I did the most stupid thing. I tried to concentrate on writing, but that also, I was unable to do after some time. Soon, I tried to sleep to divert my attention towards the phone! I wanted to know my blog stats, who had "liked” my posts on Facebook and all that..”
On her 5th day, she decided to divert her mind. For that, she volunteered for a program where she served food and prepared sandwiches for 1000 delegates for a conference. She got a chance to meet many new people coming from absolutely different cultures and countries. However, back in her mind it was slowly becoming difficult to keep her hand away from the phone. But with much determination, she succeeded in completing her fifth day.
Post this trip, she realized few essential facts of life:
- "How living technology free slowed me down” - living without technology taught her to live life by using the phone for a lesser amount of time. The trip let her connect with herself spiritually.
- "Lessons for life” - she realized that it is we who make life complicated by adding too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ into it. Hence, slow down a bit to realize the true fact of life.
- 24 hours a day are more than enough - Technology occupies most of our schedule which often makes us feel that 24 hours is not enough to live our life. However, Deepti explained that if we try living without technology 24 hours would be more than enough for us.
Going for a technology free trip made Deepti realized that a simple journey can turn into a memorable one by just taking this simple step.
She signs off her experience by saying "Offline is the new luxury!”
(All Pictures by Deepti Khera)
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