Are you reading this blog on your phone? Yes? That’s no surprise. We are becoming slaves to our devices, checking phone messages, email and social media accounts day and night. Americans, especially, have a hard time leaving work behind when on vacation — if they take vacation at all.
Here are seven tips to plan a digital detox in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.
1. Make Your Itinerary Beforehand
The Alabama Beaches Vacation Guide makes it easy to plan ahead. The guide even suggests itineraries for different interests like birding or the Civil War trail. You don’t have to schedule your vacation minute by minute, but it helps to include things like a restaurant list and an activities and attractions list. We use a vacation “bucket list” for each trip to decide what we want to do. We even use paper!
2. Plan Ahead at Work
If you don’t take control of your vacation time, your employer won’t do it for you. Talk to co-workers about ongoing projects and make sure anything time-sensitive is being handled by someone else. Set an auto-responder for your work email so people know you’re away, not ignoring them. The more you do proactively to prepare at work, the more you can unplug.
3. Put the Phones Away
Really, you can do it! Just lock those phones up and head out to do something fun. On Alabama’s Gulf Coast, no doubt you’ll be staying near something fun to do. If you’re staying beachfront, head out to the beach and take a walk along the shoreline. If you’re staying at the Gulf State Park, take a walk or a bike ride on the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail. Or get some ice cream and toast to a great vacation with the kids! Kick off your digital detox with an easy activity like this and rediscover your family time!
4. Trust the Locals
One of the best things about Alabama’s Gulf Coast is the local commitment to the community. It makes this destination stand out from many places I’ve visited. So don’t rely on Yelp reviews for restaurant choices, ask the locals or visit the Welcome Centers! They know the best place to get whatever it is you want to eat.
5. Get Active
et’s face it, you can’t easily ride a bike with a phone in one hand. You can’t cast a fishing line with only one hand. And have you ever tried to build a sandcastle while scrolling through Instagram? No way! Keep the phone locked up in that safe and get outside to enjoy the beautiful beach around you.
6. Do Something Special
We took a charter boat ride with Sail Wild Hearts on our first trip to Orange Beach. It’s still one of my favorite days ever! Our tour was six hours long, and I took several photos (for my article). But many, many times, I tucked the phone away in our beach bag and simply enjoyed the experience with my husband and daughter. We laughed. We saw dolphins. We kayaked. We talked. We made lifelong memories.
7. Recognize the Temptation to Check In
To get through your first digital detox, set guidelines for the whole family.
- Maybe do a digital detox weekend rather than a whole week.
- Or schedule digital time during vacation lulls. But stick to the limits you set and don’t break them. Having adult children, I know their friends are important. So we allow them to check in while we get ready to go to dinner. Knowing they can check in with friends, they don’t resent being cut off from them the rest of the day.
- If you “need” to take photos, set your phone to airplane mode and agree to a limit for the day. Don’t try to capture every moment on a screen, but in your heart.
We’re wired to check our phones, computers and tablets 24/7, but electronics are no substitute for family, conversation and real memories. Take a digital detox — for a weekend or a whole week — and enjoy the simple things in life. After all, they’re the important things.
