In Dublin, I didn’t have my phone. Well, I did, but since my UK SIM card doesn’t cover Ireland, my cellular device was pretty useless without WiFi.
Standing hundreds of feet above the Atlantic Ocean, on the Cliffs of Moher, I briefly considered what would happened if I tossed my phone over the edge. Without even a railing to stop me, it would be easy. I could drop it straight down and watch the splash it made as it sunk deep into the blue-green sea, or I could make it into a game and see how far I could chuck it.
With an unseasonably blue sky above me and seemingly never-ending water below, my cell phone was the last thing I needed. My mind was filled with poetry and self-reflection. I was at one with nature and my phone would only serve as a lithium-powered distraction. That was, however, until I wanted to take a picture.
I had an interesting relationship with my phone over spring break. I realized how long the battery could last when it’s on airplane mode all day, that I really don’t need to Snapchat every instance of latte art I encounter, that waiting for a text back is a lot less stressful when you can’t send a message in the first place.
But I also appreciated how important a cell phone could be when traveling. With my phone, I had a camera in my back pocket and a means of communication if I was ever really in a jam. I had a way of telling my parents I was safe in every new country. I had a map and dinner recommendations and a translator all neatly wrapped into one device.
On the second leg of my spring break, I played a fun game called “Let’s drop Elyssa alone in a German-speaking country.” I touched down in Salzburg, Austria, at about 10 a.m., and my friends would not arrive until about 9:30 p.m. This gave me a full day to explore the city on my own. Throughout the course of the day, I was both a technology-loving modern traveler and a tech-free wanderer. I asked a local to interpret the directions I had printed from Google Maps to get me to my hostel.
For the first time in my life, I used a real paper map to guide me through the city (I also discovered that paper maps are useless and that aimlessly walking is much more effective, but that’s beside the point). But I also sat in a coffee shop for about an hour and called my dad. I also FaceTimed with my friends from school because I was getting anxious being alone in a world covered with indecipherable words. I found meaning in being disconnected, but I had a line to the comfortable when it helped.
Wandering around the Cliffs of Moher, I was writing poetry in my head. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a notebook to write it down in, so I typed the first line into the notepad on my phone (also in that note is the first line of this article, but I digress). I kept on saying that I would expand on it later, but on the bus there was WiFi. That night we had plans. I kept on being distracted by the world, both virtual and tangible. It’s far too easy to blame technology for my still unwritten lines, and, to an extent, it’s deserved.
But my phone is also my notebook when I have nothing else. It’s my photo album that I can go to for inspiration when the poem finally (and inevitably) comes. So maybe I don’t need to adopt a Luddite life to feel at one with the world. I just need airplane mode sometimes.
