Digital detox holidays

Holidays are no longer a guaranteed break from connectivity. You might go on an off-grid getaway, only to be as reachable as you would be had you stayed put. At the time of writing, 92 percent of the world has network coverage. Wild places that were once seen as ‘cut off’ or remote, are coming in under the net of the network. Time was that your phone would run out of battery if it got too cold – but new models are usable even when it’s -20°C in Lapland and your thumbs are too numb to type. Increasingly, they are waterproof.

The world’s relentless connectivity explains the rise of hardline approaches: enforced digital detox holidays, where your phone is locked away. But there are other ways to reduce your screentime.

“We design holidays that make it genuinely easy to unplug,” says Rosanna Neophytou from our partner Experience Travel Group. “We do that, not by forcing a digital detox and stealing your phone out of your hands, but by creating experiences that naturally pull you into the moment, whether you’re chatting with a local guide over lunch in Sri Lanka or having a hands-off ethical elephant experience with no Wi-Fi in sight.”

You can shave off screentime, and in some cases do away with your phone all together – be inspired by the trips below.

Our Sri Lanka accommodation hosts in the forest refrains from social media themselves, aren’t on booking platforms, and are off-grid – it means when you stay for our digital detox holiday here, you’re lodging with people who might not be online, but are on your wavelength.

You won’t find Wi-Fi on a Maldivian dhoni. You’ll spend seven nights without it on our Sri Lanka and the Maldives small group tour. “Not an issue for me,” said our traveller Natalie Bell, “I enjoyed the conversation and games I had with my fellow travellers in the evenings.”

There’s no signal or internet – and little of anything else either – on a minute private island on the Belize Barrier Reef, over 34km from the mainland. This is where you’ll find our lionfish spearing marine conservation holiday. “The most exciting aspect was escaping from reality and living on this beautiful island with no Wi-Fi,” says Charles Vaughan, our customer on this trip. There’s a satellite phone for emergencies.

You won’t find Wi-Fi or electricity in a wildlife hide above the treeline in Romania’s Fagara? Mountains, where you can spend multiple nights wildlife watching (and keep that phone off to save the battery). On our desert camps, ditching the phone for the evening can help save your night vision – all the better for constellation identification.

Our volunteering holidays can naturally double as phone-free spaces – they are often remote, and use simple accommodation. You’re staying in one place for your time, so you don’t need to use your phone for any logistics – plus, there’s plenty to do so you’ll be kept busy.

Evenings can be spent getting to know other volunteers over a board game and dinner. On certain turtle conservation holidays, phone torches and flash photography are banned from nightly beach time patrol (they might disturb the hatchlings). For Heather Price, who went on our family volunteering holiday in Tanzania, a highlight of the trip was, “watching my two teens bond with other teens, come off Wi-Fi and step up to the work!”

When there isn’t work, turning off the phone can help you learn to relax. “The biggest challenge is going from a hectic life to chilling out,” says Anne Smellie, from our partner Oyster Worldwide, who run our Costa Rica volunteering trips. Family volunteering trips have a lot of downtime. “It’s brilliant for teaching children that it’s OK to do nothing. One family thanked us, saying it taught their children to be bored.”

“One massive thing nowadays that we’ve found is that parents are so grateful seeing their kids get away from their screens,” says Brett Smith, director of family holiday provider Green World Holidays, “Our trips are opportunities to immerse yourselves, to get back to being kids – lots of messing around in the water.”

“Our kids decided not to take their cell phones with them,” says traveller Sandy Attia, who went on our Nile felucca cruise in Egypt. “They have come back saying that this was the best holiday that they have ever had. We laughed, played cards, shared stories, soaked in the surroundings and slept under the starlit sky. Beautiful!”

Parents are often anxious that their children are tech-free, but will keep tech for themselves – scouring resorts for a scrap of signal round the back by the bins. “If children can do it, we can all do it,” says Marc Audonnet from our partner Au Fil du Nil, whose felucca cruises have no engine and no electricity on board. “Some people might be concerned about how they will recharge batteries. Our team always manage to make it possible during stops on shore, but the cruise is a perfect moment to have a digital detox.”

“The most common question is around Wi-Fi!” says Dyan McKie from our specialist, Intrepid Travel, speaking about our Bali family holiday with teenagers. “And whilst they will have access to Wi-Fi in each of the hotels, our holidays are a perfect opportunity to ditch screen and gaming time and bond as a family.”

Water and phones don’t generally mix, making water-based holidays great for phone-phobic families. On kayaking trips, everything gets squirrelled away into a dry bag. Since it’s quite hard to get lost on an open lake, or a route where you’re simply following the coast, you can keep that watertight pouch shut tight.

Swimming holidays are similar – you’ll want to leave your phone in your room whilst you head out for your swims – and you’ll probably be so tired at the end of the day that you won’t need to pick it up to wind down and sleep. “It was a really good exhaustion,” says Responsible Travel’s Rob, who went on a swimming holiday in Greece. “If I put my head down, I was gone every night! You weren’t waiting around to fall asleep.”

How do you go without a phone when you need to get around? Our self guided trips might necessitate time with a phone for navigation – but others provide maps and handwritten notes. Others even provide you with a phone, so you’re not using your own – though increasingly, you’ll be given a SIM, which means you keep your phone. With eSIMs, you keep your phone’s functionality intact even in wilderness areas like Patagonia and Namibia.

“Our trips promote mindful use of mobile phones,” says Federica Meliaco, founder of our South America travel specialist partner, TransHumans. They provide self drive travellers with a local SIM card, for access to affordable data and emergency contacts. “Many of the places we visit have no signal or Wi-Fi, making it easier to unplug,” she says. “We believe it’s important to switch off during the holidays to truly reconnect, with ourselves, with nature, and with those around us.”

Having a phone doesn’t need to mean doomscrolling, here are some great alternative ways to use yours on holiday.

Translate in real time, and converse with local people. Discover Latin and local plant names; identify the calls of birds. Count down the latitude on the way to the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Capricorn, the Equator… Measure mini tremors in areas where earthquakes are common. Set up an aurora alarm for the Northern Lights.