At Colby College, we have a Jan Plan term, which is where students have the opportunity to do an internship, an independent study, take a class, or come up with something (academically) worthwhile to do for the month of January instead of having a long winter break. I loved the Jan Plan class I took last year, but this year I chose to go to India with a group of girls doing internships, where I opted to do an independent study instead.

It was an incredible month. There were ups and downs for everyone, as there always are on any trip abroad, but overall it was one of the best months of my life. Each day brought something new, and living in the mountains of the northeast made every moment beautiful. I went into the trip expecting not to be able to use my phone at all for the duration of the month, except for when I would find the occasional Wi-Fi hotspot to email updates to my family and friends. The farmhouse we stayed at ended up having Wi-Fi on one of the patios, but it was incredibly spotty and sometimes dipped out for days at a time. I am someone who is, admittedly, pretty addicted to my phone. Before I left, my friends and I lamented losing our Snapchat streaks and my missing out on updates about everyone’s lives, as a few of us were scattered around in different places for the first time all year since the summer.

What surprised me was the degree to which I loved being disconnected. I anticipated that it would be nice to not be on my phone all the time, but I underestimated how liberating it is. Rather than having my phone in my pocket at all times, I left it in my room all day. I used it for music at night when I couldn’t sleep or for photographs when we went on excursions, but it spent the majority of the trip on the counter by my bed. Everyone mostly did the same. At dinner, we would all sit around the fire with our plates on our laps, talking about our days, the food, and anything else that crossed our minds. We weren’t texting our friends from home, saying how much we missed them, and we therefore formed a really close group of people who hadn't previously known each other very well. I’d been friendly with some of the girls before we left, but now I consider quite a few of them good friends after having that time together. Being in an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar people could have been uncomfortable, but we all were forced to bond so quickly that right away it wasn’t so intimidating. Without my phone, I was able to be present in every single moment of each day, and that made my trip that much more amazing.

One of the best memories of that trip was one morning when we woke up before the sunrise and did yoga in the yard, then took a silent walk up to the top of Mount Delo and watched the light spill out over the hills and light up the valley. No one had to speak or Snapchat or text; we all just could appreciate what was around us, right then. This trip taught me a lot about myself and about appreciating the little moments of every day that can pass you by so quickly: a friend closing her eyes and inhaling the steam from her chai, the beautiful and absolute silence of a rural mountain estate in the early morning, a tender moment of eye contact between a husband and wife. Allowing yourself to be without technology is a gift I rarely think to give myself at home, but I’m going to do so much more often. I recommend that you do too.