eWeek - June 7, 2010

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Leave your PC home Using minimal technology on vacation helped me reconnect with the world. CAMERON STURDEVANT

iny doses of personal technology helped me enjoy a great two-week trip through France and Spain. With the help of my iPhone, some temporary WiFi services from iPass and my 2-year-old Canon PowerShot camera, I slipped through the streets snapping pictures, while keeping in touch with the folks back home.

I was helped along the way by ATMs, postal kiosks and railway ticket machines that offered English-language interfaces. Although border patrol agents were just as surly as they were when I traveled on my previous passport, my new RFID-equipped identification did reduce the amount of time I had to spend in line.

Much as I appreciated the technology I was able to bring on my trip, I was more happily engaged in the company of family, enjoying human contact and communicating with as little technology as possible. Unlike tourists ladened down with bulky DSLR cameras and lugging laptops in backpacks, I left all my big battery-pow-ered friends at home—and was happy about it.

In fact, I blithely ignored work and (for the most part) personal e-mail while I was away. Thanks to Skype, I was able to call a few people back in the United States to pass on the latest adventures of my trip. But it was even more satisfying to go into a Spanish post office and buy international postcard stamps from a human being and then spend time relaxing at the hotel writing postcards to friends and neighbors back home.

I flew both ways on a 747-400, an aircraft
that first launched more than 20 years ago. I
can’t think of another piece of high-tech equip-
ment that was first delivered in 1989 that I use
today. Although I prefer Boeing 767s (a beau-
tiful two-aisle, human-scaled airplane), there
is nothing like flying in a 747—especially one
operated by Air France, undoubtedly one of the
best coach airline experiences I have ever had.
I didn’t miss the individual seat-back enter-
tainment systems found in other airlines. I also
didn’t miss the “upgrade assault” so beloved by
U.S. airlines. I was met by a friendly cabin crew
who offered tasty food and drink, eyeshades and
earplugs. Instead of a non-stop PA announce-
ment about what I could buy on board, I received
pleasant hospitality on both legs of my flight. It
turns out that when we aren’t packed in to within
an inch of our lives and given bags of peanuts
instead of meals, we need much less technology
to tranquilize us during a flight.
It was startling to notice in both Paris and
Barcelona that people talk
to each other face to face. In
San Francisco (where I work)
and Oakland (where I live),
it is common to walk down
the street with people who
are loudly engaged in what
appears to be a one-sided
conversation with their cell
phone. Or they scowl with
concentration as they text the
most important message in the universe. Sure,
people in Europe also use mobile phones and send
texts, but it’s nothing like the level of intensity that
I’ve grown to tolerate in the United States.

Overall, I had a very pleasant break from my computer and social media connections. As with the best kind of vacation, I had the chance to “live intensely,” as one travel guide put it.

Now that I’m back in my regular way of life, I’m hoping to hang on to some of the humanity I picked up while I was away. After all, California is a great place to hang out—and not just because it’s the home of Silicon Valley. ;