Iceland, Without a Phone
Mt. Esja. I have no idea if there would’ve been any sort of signal up there anyway.
DFW is rapidly becoming my least favorite airport, even though I know nothing can be as bad as O'Hare. I texted my mom from the familiar post-covid sight: a gate that was completely overcapacity for the amount of people using it, with incomprehensible delays on a day with no inclement weather and no excuses, and a dozen desperate people trying to get home standby before the long weekend started.
That's because of the long weekend. Good thing you're staying home. She replied. Oh, but I’m not. I explained. I booked a last minute flight to Iceland, and I was going offline the entire time to just be off the grid.
I had this all planned out, sort of, in the sense that I had booked a flight to Iceland the night before, and figured out renting a car and a hotel and all the other stuff today. And I was going home to repack my bags and return to the airport. I downloaded all the Google Maps data and playlists I needed for the long weekend to my phone, texted my goodbyes, and went into Airplane Mode until I returned.
The last time I had been without a phone for any serious length of time was in 2014 after I wrecked my SUV on another similar adventure. I had gone off roadtripping to Colorado with vague plans of “being in Colorado” and without telling anybody that I had gone anywhere, and it ended disastrously. I ended up in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of machines with most of my limbs broken and it was several days before I really got online again when my mom brought me a Cricket phone she got at a Walmart nearby. My brand new iPhone had been wrecked and the phone number I had before was still tied to it and other logistical hassles (namely, “needing a machine to be able to breathe”, “not being able to walk”, “still a few blood transfusions away from for sure being alive”, "and “power of attorney”… being almost dead is an experience, one I’ve never really talked about, but I’m think I’m finally ready to, just not in this post).
How was it?I knew the first question would be when I returned. The thing is, I think that state of constant connection, of constantly having to make judgments and provide feedback, really just gets in the way of correctly processing and assessing any given situation. I had sort of intuited that by the time I got on the plane, and had really tried to cut back. I had an Apple Watch for safety reasons that I would take with me when I went running but otherwise mostly just jettisoned my phone unless I was stuck in my DM’s or on a call for work or another thing where I was actually just using it to do something. But I didn’t really see the full extent of it until I just unplugged.
The trip wasn’t “awesome”. It wasn’t “good” or “bad”. It was a very complicated emotional experience with some extreme highs - climbing most of Mt. Esja was a peak life experience, for sure. Roadtripping out to some town with a bunch of commercial fishing and industrial shipping operations was, too. I knew those were experiences most other people weren’t going to have on a trip to Iceland and so it felt very special and I was grateful to get a window into something unique. The boat trip to see the puffins was fun. Being in the sauna and the hot tub on the roof was relaxing and sublime.
But a lot of the trip was also frustrating. I was battling the elements the entire time, because it is Iceland, and I packed the day I left for the trip largely by grabbing random vaguely warm-looking clothes, a raincoat, and some winter gear. The sensible Toyota sedan I had rented was unavailable and I ended up driving all over the place in a diesel-powered Skoda that seemed to be designed without ever putting a human in the front seat and having them go anywhere. I was staying in a hotel about a half hour from the one real city of any size in Iceland in a venue that was more like a cabin than anything else. The second day I was there the lights did not work at all, though luckily the fridge stayed operational. Having lights on the first day did not prevent me from trying to make a ham sandwich with what turned out to be raw bacon after buying groceries and getting a bunch of things wrong. There was only one restaurant close by and it was closed the entire time I was there.
Far worse than any of those occurrences that I was more than capable of laughing off or dismissing as my own fault was that the other tourists, when I encountered them at all, seemed to come in groups of 20 or more, all in head to toe Arc’teryx and waterproof pants, these $2000 getups for walking on the moon on their $10000 bucket list trips. I felt woefully out of place in my shredded North Face raincoat from a zillion years ago that had all broken zippers and some sort of flat leather dress boots I bought online. I was ruining the vibe. I didn’t get that sense in the port at Akranes, where rough men were working outdoors in awful pouring rain and high winds in jeans and sweaters. But on the paved trails at the national park, where just showing up in my normal clothes to get out of the car and walk around a little bit was puncturing a hole in whatever narrative had caused people to go out and buy these tacticool neon getups, I mostly just felt like I was in the way even though I had just done close to 3000 feet in elevation gain on real trails the day before. I had committed the type of fashion faux pas that would have gotten me kicked off of the island in a reality show.
The industrial port at Akranes, which seemed to have fewer people wandering around in gear from the Tyson’s Corner mall.
But the thing is, I don’t think I ever would have made that observation or felt it as strongly as I did if I had been on my phone the whole time. I would have been too busy texting my friends and family back home the highlight reel and never really allowed myself to experience anything else, especially not any of the humbling or humiliating moments. It would have become a trip about trivia from the volcano or the Vikings or the presidential palace and my own observations would have remained a mystery.
The other thing that was really apparent by not using a phone on the trip other than just for downloaded GPS data was that there were a million different things I didn’t think about at all. It was like a huge weight off of my shoulders. I felt none of that anxiety at all until I got much closer to being home, then I suddenly wondered what was going on with work or what everyone else did over the weekend or a million other things that I had little control over even when I was at home.
I really think that’s the main thing smartphones provide on a moment to moment basis: the illusion of control. How much control did I really give up by just not using the damn thing for a few days? Probably not very much. Events play out how they play out, and there’s not much to be gained by worrying about them. But on a daily basis it’s super tempting to think, if I’m reachable, if I’m connected, I have control. But it’s false, and it’s unnecessary. The handful of people and situations that really matter to my life on some kind of ongoing basis aren’t really going to be changed just by responding to a text in 30 seconds. And if that’s how it has to be why do I want to be in that situation anyway? My value as a person does not come from replying to texts at chatbot or customer service speed.
I also took almost no pictures with my phone, other than just of where I parked. As a result I worried far less about what I looked like or getting perfect pictures to post on social media and just enjoyed the trip for what it was. I think if I had been on my phone, I would have spent my time in the rooftop sauna and hot tub taking pictures instead of enjoying the experience and listening to the waves crashing against the shoreline and the birds fighting with the wind and the rain. I also took, I think the best photos I ever have with my non-smartphone camera. That’s a real permanent and durable takeaway from the trip that I feel really good about, and one that trying to get NOW NOW NOW social media pictures and post in realtime would have undermined.
Going offline on a trip like this is not an approach that can work for everyone and I can’t say I would advise most people to go off to another country with little notice and drive around a crappy car for a few days with just downloaded GPS data. But I enjoyed the experience and found it to be a fun challenge, and I hope going forward I can enjoy more moments like that and use my phone a lot less.
I don’t think smartphones are all bad. I don’t even think TikTok is all bad. I just realize we’ve all overdone it, and now it’s time to course correct. There’s a time and a place to be connected, and it’s at the airport gate wishing people goodbye. It’s fine to just go into Airplane Mode for the rest of a trip somewhere.
