Key Things I Learned In My Last Trip
Going on Trips during vacation is nothing new. Its like going on since ages. Remember how our parents used to take us on holidays during our summer & winter breaks and now we do the same. The moment we find out that a long weekend is coming we pack our bags & plan a trip. But one thing which has been changed with time is our addiction to our cell phones. We are so addicted to our phones that even when we are on a vacation we can't keep our hands off our phone and after every 10-15 mins we take it out to check the FB notifications or mails or Insta updates or to click 1000 of pics. With a good phone or digital camera in our hand we feel like a professional photographer & click 100s of pics in a day and then we spend time on selecting which one is good to share on social media.
Earlier our parents use to take us on holiday because it actually used to be a holiday for us and for them too. We use to spend quality time with each other. Even our parents use to get some good break for their daily routine, where Dads are free from their office work & Moms get off from cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. Though we don't have 100s of pictures of those trips but the memories are as fresh as yesterday. Do you know why? Because at that time we didn't had phones or digital cameras. Yes believe it or not but phones & fancy cameras in today's time take away much more memories & golden moments than they capture.
There are two major reasons for this:
1. No post updates, no notifications means no disturbance & no distraction: We have this silly habit of checking our mails, call, social media notifications all the time which is actually a major distraction from enjoying the scenic beauty of that place and for which we have spent that much amount of money or living that moment at the fullest. Think again, we took an off from our office so that we can be with our friends & family but rather spending time with them our focus keep shifting on all these things. Imagine suddenly your partner or kid or friend points at something magnificent, something extremely beautiful like a sunset or a pack of birds. Your eyes are admiring the beauty but your mind instantly ask you to take out the camera and click the picture before it goes away & you start clicking pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5....10. So basically rather than seeing something from your own eye you saw it from the lens of your camera or your phone. And the story doesn't end here because now you go through that 10s of pics you just clicked to select that one pic which is looking best of the lot to upload it on social media with a flaunting caption like having a gala time with family or spellbound with the enchanting beauty of these views etc. And after you post it you start getting notifications which you keep checking to feel that how everyone is praising your photography or feeling envious of you because of your perfect holiday. And in all this activity you actually missed the moment, the chance to actually get spellbound with that beauty.
2. Lesser pictures means more & better time: Think again what is the real purpose of going on holidays? To flaunt our holiday pics and show how wonderful our life is that we are having such an amazing vacations to 1000s of our connections on social media out of which we might actually be in touch with hardly 10-12 people or for our self & our loved ones with whom we wanted to have some real memories. Remember those time when we use to have cameras with reels. Since there was limit to the no. of pics we could click like 25-30 so we only used to click 1-3 pics at one point and so the rest of the time we use to enjoy the holiday care freely. Its good to capture memories but it is better to create unforgettable memories and that only happens when we focus more on enjoying it & less on clicking it. Do you remember when was the last time you checked the complete digital album of your trip. No right. Checking family album was fun because it too had a certain no. of pics which was easy to check but now with 100s of pics of one trip we neither have that much time to go through all these pics nor every picture is worth checking. 40% of the pictures are generally repeated pictures with slight change in pose or expression rest the background & everything is same. So what's the point in taking so much pain & wasting time in clicking n no. of pictures which we will not even go through again. And who on our social media network has time to go through the complete album. They may check 3-4 pics, not more than that. Isn't this obvious that why would anyone else be interested in going through your complete vacation album. No one has such free time right.
So keeping the above points in our mind on my last trip to Goa I experimented something which totally proved it. I went to Goa for 4 days with my husband and since we both wanted to enjoy at the beach at the fullest so we came up with a plan. On the first day of our trip we left our phones & camera at the hotel room and went on the beach just to enjoy its beauty & play in the sea.
Without the tension of phone or our expensive camera we played in the waves and enjoyed at the beach to the fullest. No notifications, no chance of updating any FB status gave us the opportunity of actually enjoying that time in real rather than just posing for pictures & showing how much we are enjoying on social media. We sat on beach and talked for hours about endless things and realized that this is the longest talk we did after a long time as we were just talking & sharing our feelings without getting distracted by anything. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying people don't talk to each other but even when they are doing it their half concentration is on their phone. They are not fully into the conversation and without your phones all you have is time. Time to talk, time to listen, time for each other, time for yourself.
On our second day we took the camera & phone and just clicked pictures because on that day our purpose was to click good pictures of that area and since we had already enjoyed it day before we were not missing anything. Post our 2nd day we realized that we actually had much more fun on first day than the second so on our third day we again left all our phone & camera at the hotel.
So after our last trip we discovered this secret formula of enjoying your trip in a better way is to keep a distance from your phone & camera. You can argue with me saying that experience at beach is always same so it does not matter if you leave your phone & camera for one day but you can't do it on other places. I agree but I am just saying that next time when you are on a trip, try to enjoy the moments & beauty of that place from your own eye rather than your camera's lens. Try to use your phone minimum like 2-3 times max in the whole day, click pictures when it is actually needed and enjoy the rest holiday as a real holiday. Try it on your next trip & it will change your prospective of using phone & camera on your holiday like it did mine.
Would love to hear your thoughts & experience on it.
If you are from Delhi and looking for last minute gateways, check my blog 5 Last minute holiday gateways from Delhi & Rishikesh - A perfect gateway from Delhi under Rs.4000
Hope it help you in your next travel plan. Happy Travelling.
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