written by Rough Guides Editors
updated 15.06.2021
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written by Rough Guides Editors
updated 15.06.2021
Find peace at Buddhist monastery, Nepal
Trim out the religious and/or mystical connotations and Buddhism boils down to something quite simple – brain training. Emptying your mind of white noise in the Buddhist manner – and thereby opening it up to richer focus and awareness – has never been easy. But the digital age is making it even harder, with an ever-billowing storm of information clamouring for our attention. So, retreat – a Tibetan Buddhist monastery might just be the perfect balm to your perpetually flicking and scrolling mind.
- Find peace at Buddhist monastery, Nepal
- Get isolated at Three Camel Lodge, Mongolia
- Stay with the Huaoranis in the Amazon, Ecuador
- Go wild camping in Sweden and Norway
- Rub elbows with elephants at Jongomero camp, Tanzania
- Get deserted in the Cook Islands
- Back to basics in a bothy, Northern Ireland
- Meet your ancestors at an archaeological dig
- Delve into the Krubera Cave, Georgia
- Cut off in Havana, Cuba
- Spend a week in Amish country, USA
- Get grounded in Bolivia's salt flats
- Digital detox at Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, Canada
- Surrender yourself in Chicago, USA
- Stay secluded in Butterfly Valley, Turkey
- Take a survival challenge on a Belize island
- Stay in Skiary Lodge, Scotland
- Explore Antarctica
- Ultima Thule Lodge, Alaska
© NIRUN NUNMEESRI/Shutterstock
Get isolated at Three Camel Lodge, Mongolia
Travel to Three Camel Lodge in Mongolia, a country whose name is a byword for notions of the faraway, and you’ve already made a significant mental leap. You’re certainly not in Kansas anymore here – the nearest wifi is hundreds of miles away in the capital, Ulan Bator. The lodge lets you sample the nomadic lifestyle, except with all the hard bits removed and felt slippers thrown in. Expect snow leopards, bears and wild camels – who needs David Attenborough documentaries?
© Christian Kornacker/Shutterstock
Stay with the Huaoranis in the Amazon, Ecuador
The Amazon river and its tributaries form one of the greatest natural networks of connectivity on the planet. Digitally speaking, however, it's a total void. Arrange a stay with the Huaoranis of Ecuador for insights into their culture, from tracking in the rainforest to lessons in their language, which is said to be unrelated to any other on Earth.
© Dr Morley Read/Shutterstock
Go wild camping in Sweden and Norway
Wifi is not such a rare amenity on campsites these days. But if you’re engaged in 'wild camping' – pitching your tent off-piste – then technology begins and ends at a rickety gas stove and a pack of AA batteries. In Norway and Sweden, wild camping is part of the national identity – and with landscapes ranging from the Arctic Circle to island-sprinkled archipelagos, there are myriad reasons to leave the glampsites behind.
© Max Topchii/Shutterstock
Rub elbows with elephants at Jongomero camp, Tanzania
You're enjoying a precious moment with a spindly dik dik in Ruaha National Park when all of a sudden: "BEEP BEEP, BEEP BEEP" goes your phone, the precious animal does a runner and your fellow safari guests make a mental note to blog about your appalling behaviour once reunited with their devices. Because they, unlike you, have respected this remote, luxurious southern Tanzanian camp's requests that digital equipment be kept under lock and key for the duration of your visit.
© AdangRuj/Shutterstock
Get deserted in the Cook Islands
That these fifteen South Pacific islands are named after legendary eighteenth-century explorer James Cook is a bit of a giveaway – they’re seriously remote. Rarotonga, the main island, is not overburdened with hi-tech distractions – one popular activity is "jetblasting" whereby you hang out near the airport’s runway and, well, get blasted by the displaced air from descending planes. Better, perhaps, to focus on enjoying the islands’ natural underwater beauty, from black pearl fields to coral lagoons.
© Przemyslaw Skibinski/Shutterstock
Back to basics in a bothy, Northern Ireland
Cast yourself away – or rather, paddle yourself – to this restored stone cottage near Lisnaskea in County Fermanagh, part of the Lough Erne Canoe Trail. The bothy is neat but basic as can be, its list of mod cons beginning and ending at cold running water, a wood-burning stove and south-facing skylights. With life stripped back to the bare essentials, you’re left with the mental space to enjoy Upper Lough Erne’s tranquil bays and sprinkling of lush green islands.
© James Kennedy NI/Shutterstock
Meet your ancestors at an archaeological dig
Get your hands dirty, cleanse your mind – that's the basic idea here. A number of operators offer holidays based around archaeological digs, from Ethiopia to Uzbekistan – although you could always purchase the tools of the trade and go it alone. Beware, though: a metal detector's seductive blipping might be hard to handle for those in technological cold turkey.
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Delve into the Krubera Cave, Georgia
The status of the Marianas Trench as the planet’s deepest point is standard pub quiz fodder. But the earthbound equivalent is less well-known. The true vastness of Georgia’s Krubera Cave has only been fully realised since the turn of the twenty-first century, and it took a team of Ukrainian speleologists two weeks to reach the cave’s 2200m deepest point. Down here, you’re guaranteed friend requests from nothing but spiders, beetles and other creepy crawlies.
@ Shutterstock
Cut off in Havana, Cuba
With patched-up old Buicks and Cadillacs stalking its capital’s streets like mechanical ghouls, the idea of Cuba as a time capsule is a familiar notion. What lies under the hood of those US classics is about as sophisticated as technology gets in Cuba – the country has the lowest rate of web access in the West, and what’s permitted is subject to heavy government regulation. Time to disengage the brain from all things digital and enjoy the city’s steamy charms.
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Spend a week in Amish country, USA
In populated areas of the US it isn't easy to escape the digital dimension. But the Amish – whose Mennonite ancestors came over to Pennsylvania from Europe at the turn of the eighteenth century – have long done a very efficient job of escaping the clutches of the modern world. In Lancaster County you can immerse yourself in their simple, rural way of life, where houses are not connected to the grid and travel is by horse-drawn buggy.
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Get grounded in Bolivia's salt flats
In one respect the Bolivian salt flats are money-spinningly hi-tech – beneath the white expanses lie the world’s largest reserves of lithium, used in battery manufacture. But that’s where links to the modern world end. Tours of the mind-bending salar are a Bolivian must-do and whichever accommodation you wind up in – freezing shack, luxury "salt palace" or Airstream caravan – the landscape utterly overwhelms and grounds you in the present moment.
© Galyna Andrushko/Shutterstock
Digital detox at Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, Canada
The internet has expanded at a terrifying rate since its inception, sure, but the Big Bang did it way bigger and way better. There’s nothing like getting out into the light pollution-free wilds and gazing up at giddying bucket-loads of stars to put you in your place. This ranch in British Columbia’s Cariboo region offers crystal-clear star-gazing allied to a digital detox programme – being reminded of your own puny insignificance never felt so good.
© Rey Garces/Shutterstock
Surrender yourself in Chicago, USA
The "windy" of Chicago’s nickname actually refers to a certain loquaciousness associated with the city. But even here you can mute the world with the Monaco hotel’s "blackout" option, which encourages guests to hand in their devices on check-in. Be aware, however, that they also offer free wi-fi, so you can polish that halo even harder should you manage not to succumb.
© Rudy Balasko/Shutterstock
Stay secluded in Butterfly Valley, Turkey
Somewhere along Turkey’s tourism-saturated Turquoise Coast, where holidaymakers are assured every home comfort, from full English breakfasts to free wi-fi, there’s an enclave of unplugged hippy-dom. Take a water taxi from Oludeniz (the "Blue Lagoon" in English, setting the evocatively back-to-nature tone) to the steep-sided, beach-fronted valley. You might still be able to data-roam, but listening to the crackle of evening bonfires or the strumming of acoustic guitars is far superior to the hum of social media.
© Turkey Photo/Shutterstock
Take a survival challenge on a Belize island
"I couldn’t survive without my phone." If you’re this digitally dependent, then perhaps it’s time you addressed your conception of the word "survive" – and that’s where getting shipwrecked on a desert island comes in. You’ll shell out for the privilege, of course, but before being left to your own devices on a Belize caye, the team will train you up and ensure you’re a budding Ray Mears. Fish gutting and fire building ahoy!
© Simon Dannhauer/Shutterstock
Stay in Skiary Lodge, Scotland
If you have ants in your social media pants, make for the unflappable stillness of Lough Hourn and let its tranquility wash over you. The most distracting thing you’re likely to encounter hereabouts is the otherworldly light – though climbing, swimming, seal-watching and star-gazing are all possibilities. This phone-, electrics- and internet-free lodge – two hours by car from Fort William, followed by a hike or a boat ride – is the only survivor from an abandoned fishing hamlet.
© Heather Shimmin/Shutterstock
Explore Antarctica
Time is running out for Antarctica. And not (for now) in the way that you might think: rather it’s the region’s status as a communications black hole that’s most pressingly threatened. The urgency of the data being gathered in the region is forcing change, expediting improvements in Antarctica’s links to the wider world: "Antarctica Broadband" is on the horizon, promising "fast internet from the bottom of the earth". At least it’ll look impressive when you check in on Foursquare.
© Stu Shaw/Shutterstock
Ultima Thule Lodge, Alaska
An ancient term denoting hazily understood lands in the far north, "Ultima Thule" harks back to the early, "here be dragons" days of navigation. And while it's certainly rugged out here, there's no chance of it all going a bit Into the Wild, for this is Alaska deluxe – after being flown in, it's chunky wood cabins, bearskin rugs and saunas all the way. And after an afternoon watching bears catch salmon, Candy Crush will seem a very sorry thing indeed.
© Ami Parikh/Shutterstock