The Importance of Going Offline

In the coming weeks and months I plan to travel through Newfoundland with mule Polly. Unlike past voyages, where I’ve posted updates every few days, I will post less frequently.

Part of it is geography. Newfoundland is a remote island. With no cell or satellite phone at my disposal, I won’t be able to get online. Or even make phone calls.

Part of it is my brain.

In recent years, I’ve noticed there’s an inverse relationship between soaking up a voyage as it’s unfolding and internet use. It’s like when I go on a trip, I enter a room. That’s the trip. The voyage. I have to struggle, experience and everything in that room. WIthout coming out.

Then there’s another room next door. That’s the online world. Every time something happens I dash into that room to tell people, “wow, I just saw an iceberg roll over” or “man, Polly just stepped on my pipe and broke it – my last one!”.

And in the meantime, the room next door, the one that represents my trip, remains vacant.

So the point is I need to stay in that first room as long as possible. To extract as much of this voyage as I can.

Will I stay in this first room the whole time I’m on the road with Polly? Of course not. Every so often, I’ll post trip updates. Just not every few days as in the past.