How To Vacation For Idiots

“The simplest solution is to put your phone into airplane mode the moment your vacation begins. This way, you can still listen to music, take photos and read, but you can’t connect to the Internet and get sucked into the black hole of wasting time. If you have legitimate travel-related reasons to access the Web — for, say, driving directions or restaurant recommendations — go to your phone’s settings to enable (or disable) the cellular data capabilities for certain apps. Turn on maps and apps like Yelp and Foursquare; turn off email and social media apps like Facebook and Twitter. For those who are inclined to cheat, I would tell them to delete the most tempting apps from their phone, whether it’s Instagram or Snapchat. And rather than bringing an iPad on vacation, try a print book or Kindle.”
 — Here are some tips on how to take a distraction-free trip like we did back before the turn of the century, which is apparently the last time we weren’t all dead-eyed, slack-jawed phone zombies who only manage to feed ourselves because an app reminds us to.

Photo: NYPL