I’m going to Spain in less than a month and I cannot tell you how excited I am. It’s going to be my first time leaving the country. Actually, it’s going to be my first time off of the east coast and first time on a plane. It is a first time for a lot of things. Every time I tell people that I’m going there though, I hear the same thing - take a ton of pictures.

Don’t get me wrong, I am going to take lots of pictures, but I do not think I’m going to take as many as people think. I want photos to remember when I come back and to be able to show people, but I really want to live in the moment. I don’t want to spend the entire time looking at the country through my screen. I have a plan.

I have decided that I’m going to leave my phone on “Do Not Disturb” during the day, except for classmates and the adults that are there to help me while in Spain. This will keep me from being on my phone, which I do have a problem of staying on too much. I’m warning all of my friends before I go that I won’t be responding a lot because I only have a month and I have so much I want to do. I’m not going to ignore people, it just isn’t going to be immediate responses, especially because there is a six hour time difference.

This will also prevent me from taking pictures and wanting to post them immediately. I do not want to waste time making sure the picture is perfect, the caption fits right, and all the other crap we normally go through. I’ve read stories of people who (and have seen first hand in family and myself) waste so much time trying to get the perfect picture that they end up wasting what is right in front of them.

I’m actually just going to take a nice camera so I can get nice photos. I want to limit myself when it comes to taking photos though. While these rules aren’t set in stone, I’m thinking of allowing myself only 5-10 minutes to take photos of an area when I first get there, and then putting the camera away. I’m not going to check to see if they came out okay, I’m not going to post them right away, I’m going to leave them be until later in the day or even later in the week.

This will let me live in the moment and enjoy my time instead of focusing on photos. I’m still going to post photos to keep my family and friends updated. It’s just not going to be every day. In all honesty, it may only be like once a week. Not just on this trip, but for the entire summer I am trying to stay off of technology more. I think it’s just taking up too much of my time.

So to anyone interested, I will take photos, and I’m sure they will end up online somewhere. People can also just ask to see them when I get back. I’m just not going to come back with a million photos. I’m going to spend my time enjoying what I see in front of me, without it being blocked by the screen. I just hope everyone understands if I don’t answer immediately and seem to go off the grid a little bit.