[Closed] Not having a mobile phone

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else's.

MONTH holiday?

Bloody teachers.

People expect you to be contactable, but that is possible without having a mobile phone. Change your answerphone message to say "send me an email, I'll be checking them every few days" or give details of where you will be staying (hotel phone numbers etc.) to close relatives.
It's only 25 years ago that moble phones were pretty rare and everyone coped back then.

I think I'd mysteriously find myself in a place with no signal, regardless of the wishes of my employer.

take it switch it off, turn it on in an emergency or you see something instaworthy

It’s a camera, banking app, mobile library and a map with a phone attached.
Set phone to divert.

The answer is...

Have a mobile sim with a number you don't pass on to people you don't want contacting you on holiday, something like say a Three 3-2-1 PAYG.

And if you have a two sim slot mobile, grab a prepaid mobile broadband data sim as well, these were ~£35 for a 24GB Three sim (from Amazon recently) that can be used for two years. 😉

What Cougar said. When I go abroad (not often) family usually know where I'm staying & that's it.
I did without a phone for 2 weeks 4 weeks ago cos I was out of signal for most of the time & it didn't affect anything but there again, I'm never glued to it unlike some folk.

I'd argue that if you are needed while on holiday then either people need to learn to step up. or you need to delegate more 🙂

You can always not answer your phone.

How does anyone find their way around these days without Google maps? I didn't make a phone call all holiday, sent no messages and sent just one whatsapp. But used maps everyday, checked the weather every day, booked a room a couple of times, booked transport twice... .

I just switch the phone off,occasionally turn it on maybe once every few days for an hour.
If something requires me to get in touch with someone then they leave a text & I get back to them when I switch it back on.

Do people expect you to be contactable.

Who are these people? Work or family?

Plenty of options to have the phone number attached to your mobile pocket computer go straight to answerphone or just be silent. But I guess what you are saying is the expectation of others that knowing you have a mobile pocket computer with you you'll pick up any messages they leave or see them and respond. If work, no not reasonable. If family it might be depending on why they are making contact.

In the early 80's my father's mother died suddenly. We were on day 3 of a two week holiday in Brittany in a place that no one knew the details for. Not quite correct my grandmother knew but being dead she was not much use. That created some pretty major havoc. My uncle had (also suddenly) died two weeks previously and dad only found out about his mother when he rang my aunt from a pay phone to see how his sister was doing 7 days later. Not sure dad ever recovered from not being there to support his family when they most needed it. If mobile phones had been a thing back then he would sure as hell have been grateful to get the call.

Take your mobile pocket computer, set the phone app to go straight to voicemail. Turn off text notifications. Delete social media apps. Relish having a useful mobile pocket computer for when you need it to enhance your holiday experience and take the holiday period to learn some self control to only use it when needed.

Slight aside - I have a work colleague who has an internal automatic email reply that says words to the effect of "Jo Bloggs is away on leave now until XXXX. Your email has been deleted. If your reason to email is still relevant after XXX when he returns please resend after his return". Have not yet had the balls to do the same but very tempted.

From my perspective my company supplies the phone and pays the contract so yes I would take it with me and yes I would answer work calls that came through as I know that 1) it doesn't happen often that they call me so that means 2) it must be something important. I wouldn't be checking any e-mail though. That said it's not unusual for me to go places with limited mobile phone coverage and wifi so it's not a guarantee that they'll actually be able to contact me.

Forgot to say - I actually take my work mobile with me on holiday but only because it's on a different network to my personal phone and there are times when I can get 4G on it when mine can't. It then acts as a very nice tether hotspot!

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

+1

Work phone gets redirected to the office when on holiday and left at home, often tempted to ditch personal phone too...

Work phone is turned off nightly, weekends and holidays.

Just to add to my earlier comment,

I remember donkeys' years ago my grandparents getting their first ever landline. Whenever the phone rang they reacted like a fire alarm had gone off, diving out of chairs or running down stairs shouting "Phone! Phone! The phone's ringing! PHONE!" Even as a small child I thought it was madness, I didn't see the drama. If it's important then the caller will ring back, right?

I got my first mobile in the late 90s, and soon caught myself exhibiting the same weird behaviour as my grandparents. I had a bit of a sanity check with myself and concluded, **** it. I didn't buy a phone to be at every bugger else's beck and call 24/7, I bought it to make phone calls.

So if it rings these days I'll generally try and answer it but I'm not going to lose any sleep over a missed call or break my neck sprinting to the thing, there's an answerphone service and caller ID will tell me who I've missed so I've got the option of calling then back immediately if I care sufficiently. I've had arguments with then-girlfriends demanding "why didn't you answer when I called?" and I'm like, what, I can't even have a crap in peace?

If I were going on holiday then I'd take my phone and want to be able to receive calls because as others have said, it's my satnav and an entertainment system. But that is only because I've got the self-control to ignore a ringing phone if I'm busy or otherwise can't be arsed with it. Sacking off demanding ringtones may help, it's a lot easier to ignore a quiet buzzing than it is Ride of the Valkyries at full volume.

TL;DR - technology isn't the problem, established behaviour is the problem.

Mine will be with me for emergencies only, but I won't be answering if the MIL calls.

although to actually answer the OP, yes I would consider it extremely unusual these days if someone didn't take their phone with them for a month. (notwithstanding some people on here who have got unusual down to an art form 😂)

I was at Dunnottar Castle yesterday. It was a beautiful day and we were not in a hurry so spent quite a while sitting around, taking in the views and enjoying being in an amazing place. What struck me was the absolute obsession with selfies. Oriental tourists in particular were not in the slightest bit interested in reading about the history, exploring the buildings or taking in the views. It was all about framing the perfect selfie. Selfies with stick, group selfies, jumping in the air selfies, gazing into the distance selfies, victory sign selfies and on and on and on and on.

One of the staff was saying they now charge for coach parking where the coach pulls over for passengers to jump out photos then drives off without anyone going into the castle.

Take your phone but put in another sim (prepaid 1 month say) give the number only to those you'd want to hear from.

Just use Do Not Disturb if you need your phone. Add who you want to Faves and the rest will be ignored. Don't open your email.

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

+1

The only time I would pick up a work call is during filming when it may well be desperate (and well paid) and I'll have left my phone on expecting a call. If it's the office calling outside of working hours/days/weeks then they don't get answered because it's on DND.

But what would you do when having a shit?

@Cougar,

That's similar to my MIL these days about having to answer a phone. She has an ancient mobile but seems to think we all must have ours turned on at all times of day and night. My missus isn't allowed calls at work, and despite telling her mum, she still calls her - three times one after the other as she didn't answer it (on silent and alert via smart watch. We've had her get very cross when we don't pick up - she'll then phone everyone elses phone in the house. This has in the past think it's an emergency, and it's usually for something like she needs more wool. We've had to tell her not to call us at 8am on a saturday/sunday as we're up at silly o'clock in the week.

We've only ever had once when there was an emergency overnight where our phones were off, but the bloody house phone wasn't - no-one called us !

As many have said, the phone is for my convenience, not someone elses.

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

Damn right! Fortunately, I get very few calls to my mobile, only one from work that I can actually remember, which was because of an embarrassing oversight regarding the whereabouts of a key to a locked compound, which needs to be accessible from 7am.
At 8am I get a call, have I got the key? 😱
Otherwise, the only calls I usually get are spammers, once in a while my bank.
Most of the time my phone is switched to silent, and I rarely, very rarely, notice it buzzing in my pocket.
In fact, one place I worked at required all mobile and electronic devices to be put into lockers for staff working in certain areas, for security reasons, so it’s perfectly possible to live without the things for hours at a time - where I work now I’m moving cars around all day, so again using a phone is unwise!
Having a large library available for breaks and lunch is invaluable, though.

Oriental tourists in particular were not in the slightest bit interested in reading about the history, exploring the buildings or taking in the views.

I've never been to the Orient because it doesn't exist in this century but the last time I was in East Asia, it was full of man-bunned Brits back-backing and begging, who would talk to you about saving the world but were only interested in getting drunk, shitting in the street, taking drugs, poverty tourism and shagging prostitutes. As opposed to the history, culture, food and stunning sights.

Taking selfies with your friends and family whilst on holiday is positively benign and civilized in comparison. Just wait until we are so poor after Brexit that your wives/girlfriends/daughters have to start selling themselves to Asian tourists - that will be funny.

I'm sure you will love that and I am sure that despite that happening, the good folk of Britain will still welcome the more cultured tourists with open armed warmth like they do in the east. Hahahah.

I don't know why you can't just take a phone and not answer it.

Who's in control of your life? You, or people with your phone number?

Cheapy phone

Up to 15 hours talk time and a month on standby

Literally 'a phone' and nothing more, of course what you could do is say to those who might want to contact you during your month off;

"I will be turning the thing on for an hour or so each evening from 20:00 - 21:00 hours if it's important (house burned down, someone has died) that is your window of opportunity to contact me"

+1 to all that @Cougar.

When I'm out riding my phone is in airplane mode for two reasons. Most practically it's because there's often no signal so the the phone increases its power trying to find one thus wasting battery for no good reason. I'll turn airplane mode off when I get to somewhere likely to have a signal and I want to make a call.

Secondly: it's my time, stop pestering me!

The selfie thing is interesting. We were riding down the West Highland Way earlier this year and there were people, mainly Chinese or Japanese, walking along with a video camera recording it and "looking" at the view via the camera's screen. They might as well have waited for Google TrailView to come online.

I never usually bother to answer my phone when out on the bike. A couple of months ago, I was just having a break on the top of South Head (near Hayfield) when my missus phoned. She'd forgotten I'd got the day off and wondered why it was so windy. Erm I'm sat on the top of a mountain with my bike....

Not quite the same, but I was absolutely ecstatic when I realised you can disable voicemail. Did it on both my work phone and my personal phone about 18 months ago and it removed a measurable amount of stress from my life 🙂

I assume the OP is talking about work calls? I am no use to work when I'm not in the building so don't get work calls, except occasionally to offer overtime if I've marked myself as available.

We regularly go to places with no signal and I don't give it a second thought that we're uncontactable. On holiday etc I'll usually have the phone with me for camera or looking things up, but feel no pressure to answer it.

My phones normally on silent.. I tend to reply/call people when I want to.. Might be selfish but I get irritated with notifications and feeling I have to be instantly available.

My phones primerily an Internet browser/map-sat nav/music player /camera etc.

Calls and texts are a secondary function lol

If that's what you want to do then do it. Why do you care? What's the actual question here?

Try being a sales person behind target with a 3 potentially year breaking deals that want to coincide in concluding whilst I’m on an expensive family reuniting holiday in the Caribbean to celebrate my wife’s 40th.

I carry a phone for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

Yeppers. We've got a cheap PAYG that lives in the car in case we need to call the AA or whatever. We don't have personal mobiles, it's smashing.

Try being a sales person behind target with a 3 potentially year breaking deals that want to coincide in concluding whilst I’m on an expensive family reuniting holiday in the Caribbean to celebrate my wife’s 40th.

No thanks, that sounds horrendous.

Oriental tourists in particular were not in the slightest bit interested in reading about the history, exploring the buildings or taking in the views. It was all about framing the perfect selfie. Selfies with stick, group selfies, jumping in the air selfies, gazing into the distance selfies, victory sign selfies and on and on and on and on.

This is a particularly Japanese trait, back home it’s noticeable that a coachload of tourists will pitch up at some famous temple or building, pile out of the coach, everyone standing in front of whatever it is they’re visiting, have photos taken, then back on the coach and off to the next venue on the tour!
A friend of mine who goes to Japan regularly has commented on it a number of times, and now that her 17th Century farmhouse hotel, restaurant and tea-room has featured in a popular Japanese animé, she’s getting the same sort of thing happening.
However, she absolutely insists that anyone turning up just to take photos can only take them if they have a cream tea with scones or cake!
She has had Japanese guests for years, and Japanese staff, but the flying visit just for selfies is a new phenomenon, and she’s making damned sure nobody gets a photo for free!

There is more to phones than people being able to contact you. I don't buy the convenience excuses. Holidays are your time and to de-stress, recharge, get some perspective and have fun.

That should include taking a break from internet addiction too, and all the stress triggers that go with it. Social media, news, trying to record everything rather than being in the moment.

Try being a sales person behind target with a 3 potentially year breaking deals that want to coincide in concluding whilst I’m on an expensive family reuniting holiday in the Caribbean to celebrate my wife’s 40th.

That kind of thing, along with other reasons, is why I am not in sales. However if I were, I'd expect my wife to understand given that our prosperity would rest on it.

First rule has to be separate work and personal phones or as a minimum dual SIM ( and take out work SIM and leave at home)

I get very few calls on my personal mobile - and mainly only use phone function for calling my mum. But useful to have a phone to book restaurants and stuff when away. Far more useful is the multitude of other stuff my phone does - satnav, music streaming, radio streaming, internet for finding restaurants, bars, local events, looking up local history, tracking rides etc from my Garmin etc. It would seem perverse to not use my phone for all the above which make holidays easier and more interesting.