5 holidays to help you take a digital detox

Thanks to smartphones, typical days include an onslaught of Facebook notifications, email pings, Twitter drafts, and general text messages, making it nearly impossible to cut out the noise.

While potentially unimaginable, we’re here to suggest a holiday sans technology.

Switch off, unplug, and live one of these five holidays without worrying about capturing them for Instagram. After all, your thumb deserves a break from all the scrolling, and so does your mind.

Go off-the-grid entirely

Stay in a yurt, eat locally grown produce, and live wifi-less for one week in the centre of beautiful Portuguese countryside on this eco yoga retreat.

Daily yoga and meditation will realign your body and mind, while your hosts Fiona and Mark will show you how they live sustainably off the land. Other eco-features include solar and hydro-powered lights and showers, compostable toilets, a communal outdoor kitchen, and an on-site vegetable garden.

Opt outside

On this 7-day trekking holiday in Sicily, you’ll be so busy climbing Mount Etna (an active volcano towering 10,990ft high) and walking gorgeous trails in the Alcantara Valley, you won’t have time to find a cell signal.

Between treks, you can relax by the hotel pool or explore the village and nearby hilltop towns to dine by the sea, shop, snorkel, and visit a Greco-Roman theatre. While your hotel room does have wifi in case of emergencies, you’ll stay busy enough without it.

Detox in luxury

Besides a digital detox, you can give your whole body a reset with a luxurious detoxing retreat in Alicante, Spain. A team of doctors, nutritionists, life coaches, yoga and Pilates instructors, personal trainers and beauty and holistic therapists are on hand to give you a renewed zest for life.

Go where your phone can’t

If the temptation to hunt down wifi and check your emails will be your biggest problem, join a holiday with activities where your phone literally won’t survive — the water. From kite, wind, or regular surfing to scuba diving or sailing, you can ride your way across Europe, Morocco, and Australia’s finest waters without any tech distractions.

 

Replace technology with a skill

When was the last time you tried something new offline? Learning a skill like cooking or speaking a language will keep your mind engaged away from the screen and give you real-world experiences. Plus, if it’s painting or photography, you get the added bonus of taking home images of your trip without needing a selfie stick or iPhone.

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Taking time away from technology refreshes your mind and removes distractions so you can focus solely on your own mental, emotional, and physical health. Doing it on holiday simply makes it more fun.