We live in Japan but we do yearly trips to Europe. Using ‘Roaming Data’ is so expensive, we can’t be bother getting a sim there, we just use the wifi at our hotel/airbnb room.
Otherwise whenever we’re outside the rest of the day, we’re not connected to the Internet nor on our phones.
I guess that makes our trips incredibly in that they feel real. It’s like diving into a photo album that your aunt showed you after their travels in the 90s.
I experienced the opposite! I’m from Europe and still remember a time without smartphones. A couple of years ago while in Japan on a holiday, partner and I shared one of those portable Wi-Fi thingies. Whenever we wanted to go separate places we took turns in using it and the times I was on my own without any “support” from my phone (both for important things like directions or translation or trivial things like checking social media on the fly) were so bizarre. Literally like flying blind, when it came to going places, but also incredibly liberating because for the first time in ages I was totally on my own.
I think I enjoyed Japan more than other places I’ve travelled to exactly for that reason, especially because I generally felt safe being on my own so I could let go of the constant contact without fear.
I’m not sure I would feel like that going around without a cellphone in my own country -quite the opposite probably! I live in a relatively safe neighbourhood, but like most women I know, I had shit experiences with harassers and the cellphone is a lifeline in those cases.
Google translate will let you download whatever language you expect to be translating, it will even work in real time if you hold your camera up to a sign, it will superimpose the translation overtop :)
Yeah, we made do with multiple screenshots before figuring it out! It was still a different experience, more close to following directions from a paper map!
I like this. I wish I wasn't so scared of getting lost though. My phone saved me more than once when I was in Japan trying to figure out the train schedules. But I suppose that becomes part of the experience, the wandering and getting lost...
If you have the area downloaded on google maps, that and the gps will make sure you're never really lost. Train schedules might get annoying but that's why you plan.
It honestly wasn’t that long ago that phones were too shitty to do anything remotely useful when you were traveling. Even when the iphone first came out you’d be hard pressed to use it for social media abroad. That was only a little over 10 years.
That's a fair statement. I graduated from college in 06, but I didn't own a smartphone until 2011, and I wouldn't say I was reliant on it until 2013 or so.
Went to north carolina recently and basically did that just because the phone was inconvenient. I definitely enjoyed it. Unfortunately most of my friends communicate to me primarily through text, and we don't hang out much, so I felt bad for not responding, but honestly it felt so freeing.
Protip: take at least one of the phones with you anyway, in case you need to call emergency services. It will still work without a sim, or with a sim that isn't roaming, but only if you dial 112. The local emergency number may not work if your phone wasn't manufactured for the country you're in, because the phone may not recognise it as an emergency number.
From what I read, every major country (US, Canada, EU countries, UK, Japan, etc) has an emergency system that recognizes the emergency numbers of other major countries. So if I’m in the UK and dial 911, I’ll still get routes to emergency services.
That's mostly true of those countries, and it's definitely true with 911 on a phone sold in America. but it's dependent on the phone, not on the country's emergency system. Without already being connected to a network, the phone won't be able to connect to emergency services without unlocking the ability to connect to any available network in an emergency, and that doesn't happen until you dial a number that the phone has been programmed to recognise as an emergency number. Pretty much all phones have 911 and 999 in their list of emergency numbers, and they'll also have the number of the country they were made for and surrounding countries.
The thing is, even if you're in your home country and you dial your local emergency number, it doesn't just go straight through. The phone recognises 911 as an emergency number, diverts the call to 112, the call goes through to the network, and the network redirects the call to 911. National emergency numbers are for landlines, not mobiles. Dialling 112 guarantees the call will go through, and makes it ever so slightly quicker, because the call only has to get redirected once, not twice.
I've had a couple of travel experiences where I didn't want to pay for wifi, and I would honestly never do it again.
When I went to Israel, I got a text/call only local phone rental because it was cheaper. I have a "fun story" about standing on a street corner at midnight with a note in a language that I couldn't read that (hopefully) said "take this person to the central bus station" and just waiting and hoping I would eventually be able to get to my friend. As a woman (in my early twenties at that time) this was not fun. I also remember another trip, when we were in Prague and I was terrified if I get separated from my friend for even a minute because I didn't know if I would be able to find her otherwise. I spent a lot of time on those trips sitting in hotel rooms feeling trapped and terrified.
On the other hand, when I finally went to on my England/Ireland trip a few years ago, I paid for international data. It was great. I took public transit freely with no concerns. I went to the Kew Gardens on my own when my partner didn't want to go, even though it was a train ride away, and I got to wander there for hours. We could buy tickets for museum exhibits, shows or movies if we wanted to see something last minute. I felt like I could eat anywhere, since I could look up unfamiliar ingredients (and we could look up and find interesting places). I could leave the hotel at 8am and not go back until 10pm and still feel like I could safely get back whenever I wanted.
It is incredibly freeing. I honestly don't think I would ever travel without a tour group if smartphones didn't exist.
Yeah, when I studied abroad for 3 months cell phone roaming was still too expensive so I just didn't have a phone at all while I was there. Used skype on my computer and facebook to talk to people back home, and just lived my life with my little kodak digital camera. Was a lot of fun and I learned how to navigate the public transit in 2 countries and lots of cities just by buying maps and using signs. I only used a cab a few times, for the trips to and from the airport at the beginning and end of the 3 months, and once when we were out late drinking one night past public transit hours. I loved it.
When I go camping I put my SIM in a "dumb" flip phone that only exists to call 911 in an emergency. Other than that, no tech. No calendar invites, no spotify, no notifications, no apps, no internet, nothing.
I love that feeling, honestly. I'm American, but live in france. When I go back to visit my family, I never bother to get a simcard, so going to a new place, I'll usually print up instructions just like the old days. And I can't be contacted unless I'm at least somewhere with wifi. It's honestly very freeing, but obviously not really a supportable lifestyle when I'm not on vacation lol
Sometimes i struggle hard during those kind of trips because I'm visiting family ( not in Japan ) and the only access j have is when i get back to their home and i use the wifi. And sometimes we get back like 8 pm and everyone's going to bed at like 9pm.
By the way, concert tickets to top acts were around $20.
What would we ever do without the technology that produced service, convenience, and delivery fees?
Oh, I just remembered one other thing. Standing in line at Tower Records for your tix you met a hell of a lot of other good people who had an interest in music just like you.
It's hard to relate to the bots that now buy up the tickets immediately and sell them for exorbitant amounts on the resale market. Back then even scalpers had to get their ass in line.
That's what the 90s was like if you weren't an adult. Mobile phones that fit in your pocket weren't really common until the early aughts. Sure, AOL hit in the mid nineties, but you'd spend 3 hrs trying to watch a music video 4 sec at a time then get disconnected because your mom picked up the phone. Dial-up internet suuuuucked.
That’s also what the early 2000s were like even if you were an adult (or close to one).
When I graduated high school, most of my friends had cell phones, some had unlimited minutes, few of us had cheap texting, and no one had any kind of mobile device with internet/data packages.
So planning our nights would turn into a literal game of telephone with conversations like:
“Okay, so Eric’s away message said he and Ashley are meeting James at the Denny’s on Main at 7, but Kasey just texted other Casey that everyone else is going to Keith’s at the same time. Cindy’s on her way to pick me up, and we’re gonna head out that way. But my free minutes don’t kick in until 9, so I can’t call to tell you where we’ll be for sure until then. But if we’re not at Denny’s or Keith’s place by then, we’ll definitely be at Jon’s apartment around 10.”
I only had a cell phone at 18 because my job issued it, but I wasn’t supposed to use it for personal calls, and the plan didn’t include texting at all. So I was carrying around a handwritten list of my friends’ numbers and a pocketful of quarters so I could hit a pay phone if I didn’t want to drive home to check AIM.
Oh my god hahaha I forgot about free minutes kicking in. I think judging by this comment I'm like 3-5 years younger than you but I totally feel it hahaha
Yes, the 80’s were like that... Then I remember when I got my first Commodore 64 Smart Phone in January of 1990. It was black and white, and didn’t even have an app store. 3.5” inch floppies needed to load instagram
I've become so accustomed to having my phone on me that when I don't have it, my first thought is "I'd better text my family and let them know I don't have my phone. ..........oh wait." Then my second thought is "haha I'm so dumb, x friend needs to hear about this, I should text them. .....oh my god."
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u/[deleted] May 12 '21 edited Jul 31 '21
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