I Was Forced Off the Grid: The Good, Bad & Ugly

We have become very attached to being instantly available to our friends, relatives and coworkers. We have also become accustomed to having the internet at our fingertips. So, last week while I was on vacation, I was forced off the grid. Some things about this experience were good and others not so much. 

When my phone took an unexpected swim and instantly reached the end of its life, I was instantaneously without email, texts, contacts, the internet, etc. No one could contact me while we were traveling.

(There is still time to join me at the Physician Freedom Summit 2025, October 6-8, in Los Angeles.)

I had visions of losing all my contacts as well as thousands of photos. Here is what I learned from the experience.

The Good

One thing I really liked was the freedom I experienced without my smart phone. I was no longer on an electronic leash. I was not checking my phone every time it made a noise since no one’s calls and texts were going through. I could not play games or listen to my audiobooks. I had total electronic freedom. It was a lot like reaching financial independence. Outside forces had lost control of me.

Without my phone, when my wife and I went for a walk in our quest to walk 2025 miles in 2025, we did not listen to an audio book. Instead, we talked during our walk. It was a pleasant change of pace. 

When I was with the other members of our party, I was not checking my phone or even thinking about the phone. I was fully present with those around me. 

After this experience, I think I will find times where I can just turn my phone off and choose to be off the grid for short periods of time. It was like a breath of fresh air.

The Bad

Without a working phone no one could get ahold of me concerning our reservations during our vacation. The company we rented our house from could not contact me with checkout instructions. Although I had received a few texts from them about the house we were renting, that line of communication had been severed and I could not even read the prior texts which contained such information as the code to unlock the front door. Fortunately, I had forwarded this information to others in our party.

Because this was not a voluntary break from electronics, I was worried about what important information I may have lost. Had I lost the thousands of pictures I had on my phone or the thousand contacts, or would they all reappear if my phone dried out? 

The Ugly

After following online instructions for drying a wet phone, found by another in our party with a good phone, and waiting 48 hours, I tried to turn on my phone. Unfortunately, my phone was dead, and I needed to get a new one after returning home. 

It turns out that having access to the old phone is very important when getting a new phone. Fortunately, there were ways around that problem. After showing my ID, producing the dead phone, and answering a few questions, the cellphone company was able to proceed with transferring my account to a new phone.

Luckily my old phone had a cloud backup, although I didn’t remember this from when I set it up. I was able to reload all my old pictures, including the thousands I had already deleted. I now have a lot of extra work ahead of me to sort through just under 8,000 photos and put them back into the folders I had them in and delete the duplicates and out of focus shots again. 

Fortunately, the cloud also had all my contacts backed up, which would have been hard to recreate. My life was made better by not losing those two collections.

I was also worried about all the things scheduled on my calendar. If I could not get that back, I was destined to miss some appointments. Again, I was lucky that my calendar was stored online and not in my phone. Once I logged back in, the calendar was restored. My wife an I share an online calendar so we can each put things on the calendar and see what each other have planed.

I began the process of reloading all my apps onto my new phone and connecting those apps to the items they controlled, such as cars, watches, bikes, television… I can’t even remember all the things I had on the phone. Many apps will not be replaced, like the Disney app we used on vacation a few years ago.

Unfortunately, one of the important apps doesn’t exist anymore. I have a blood pressure cuff that is controlled by an app on my phone. The company that makes it, Qardio, has gone out of business and the app is no longer available. Without the app, the device has become a paper weight. I had to find and purchase a new blood pressure cuff.

Several of the apps I loaded were a newer version than the one that was loaded onto my phone six years ago. (Yes, my old phone was six years old. I buy a good phone, near the top of the line, and keep it until it wears out or breaks. Then I get the newest one again. Same plan for my cars.) So, now I’m also learning how to use the newer version of many apps all at the same time. Some have changed dramatically. Others no longer exist and a different app has replaced the old one. Frankly, I like a lot of the old ones better than the new apps. I think it is the familiarity I liked. The new ones will become familiar over the next few weeks.

The time it took to load my new phone with what my old phone had and the disruption of my life by the loss of my phone was far greater than I would have expected. I’m sure there are other apps I need to load and I will discover them later, when I need them and don’t have them.

Lessons learned

1: Having your phone and computer backed up on the cloud is very helpful. It saves a lot of time when one of them crashes. Some irreplaceable items, like vacation pictures, will be preserved in the cloud. That is until the cloud crashes.

2: We are more dependent on our smart phones than we think. Only after it had broken did I realize how many things are tied to my phone. I needed to go to the store to get something and realized I didn’t have a phone to help me find the nearest store or navigate me to it. I knew there was one close by but the navigator in my car told me the nearest store was 13 miles away. I just drove to where I thought it was, and my intuition and memory worked for navigation! I can still do it old school.

3: Taking a voluntary break from electronics is a very good plan. It was freeing to not be on my electronic leash. It reminded me of going off call and signing out my patients before going on vacation. I have friends who regularly take a break from electronics for as short a time as dinner. Everyone puts their phone in a box when they get together for dinner and no one gets their phone back until after dinner. Sounds like a great idea for family get togethers as well. It brings everyone into the conversation without distractions.

4: Yes, you will be fine without your phone for a little while. I had no ill effects and neither will you. Those who sent me an important text during my down time, contacted me again when I didn’t answer. You will still get the truly important information. We have all grown too accustomed to instant communication. 

5: We all need time to ourselves when the world can be put on hold. We know about this need at work and consequently we take breaks during the day, days off during the week, and weeklong vacations during the year. Unfortunately, time off from our electronic leash is not given such priority. Make it a priority! Take short breaks from your phone during the day, week and year. Give yourself a vacation from your electronic leash. Encourage your kids to take a break from their phones as well. They could use time without the phone to go outside and play soccer, basketball or some other activity that is not electronic.

6: There are things you will not think of when you lose a phone. Such as needing it for two factor authentication or having an authenticator app no longer available. This was an issue after I returned home and had not yet completed the switch to a new phone. This makes the order of things you replace important. Two factor authentication capability needs to be restored first (phone, email, text, authenticators). Then they are available for the next apps you restore that will require them.

7: Newer technology is better. Especially when it comes to the camera (wow). Maybe I should have dropped my phone into the hot tub a few years ago. Maybe six years is too long to wait. But in reality, the changes were not enough to get my wife to trade in her six-year-old phone, as it still does everything she wants it to do.