I’m on vacation this week. I was supposed to unplug, but so far its been a bad experiment. Most things I need are online. The concierge only has listings for fancy restaurants, so if I want to go somewhere that isn’t a four star deal, I can’t count on the hotel to recommend anything.
This is the first time I’ve been wondering if it wouldn’t be better to just have an iPhone for travel, rather than lugging a laptop around and paying big network fees in a hotel. If I had an iPhone, when I’m 5 blocks away from the hotel, I could find the nearest place to purchase sunscreen or a snack without having to walk all the way back. Maps would be available. I could look up that monument and see what its history is in context.
None of these ideas are new–the new part, is that I want to do that, and remain unplugged. Socially unplugged, not digitally unplugged. I’d like an iPhone with a “vacation-mode” where email sits on a server somewhere, and my phone number changes or routes incoming calls for the week to voicemail.
I don’t want to unplug from information–I want to unplug from people.
Trend: vacation still means being plugged in. Coming soon: renting an iPhone for tourist info–or maybe a “vacation mode” — Steve, are you listening?
