Great. I dropped my phone.

Oh my lovely Oneplus.

Granted I had that phone for more than 2 years, and the screen detection started to become very slow. So I was not outcrying hard for the loss. The hardship was its timing.

It was inside the airport inside the check-in 30 min before my flight to Israel.

I had the option to buy a new phone abroad. But there is always buzz about modern humans spending too much time on the phone. Gluing our eyeballs onto the screen is turning us into monkeys, they say. Oh, what the hell, I could give this zen life a try.

There came my 50 days of no cellphone.

I had a MacBook with me to substitute, but there are things I learned on the way.

14 Things I learned

1. Screenshot Master

First thing first, I needed to find my hostel upon arrival.

When navigating, Google Map is truly a god given. Its feature to download and support offline usage has saved traveler life a ton. Now that’s all gone.

Lucky enough I still had a laptop with me. If you are on Mac, it’s Command + Shift + 4. It will save your life someday.

It is more so true in the new places. Even finding a location, you seriously need to take a screenshot of everything. What time does the bus leave, which number would go, how many stops, the stop names to get off, and of course, how to get back from there at different times: evening, night, late midnight. Of course, it needs to be shot in zoomed in and out. Otherwise, the street names won’t show up. If too detailed, you won’t know how to navigate the street. I was taking at least 8 Google Map screenshots every time I went out.

2. Lookout for Troubled Neighborhood

This is not so much for the developed countries. And depends on the type of laptop you have. But if you are traveling elsewhere, MacBook is considered a sign of status. It’s an expensive piece of metal. You don’t want to be flashing that on a street especially in a bad neighborhood.

And trust me, if you are walking with a laptop on hand, you will stand out. A LOT.

3. Diligent in Communication

It is something my parents always poked at me when I was young. When and where are you meeting your friend? As a digital native, we almost never promise beforehand. It’s like maybe meeting tonight and maybe around 5pm but could be 7pm. The time is instant communication. People nowadays just don’t plan out anything. We live in this last minute culture, to pick a location and change it as it comes.

Well, that lifestyle didn’t suit so well with no phone guy. One time, I was supposed to meet someone for a concert. Let’s meet at the stadium? No, that’s not specific enough. It has to be at this gate number, how easy it is to find the gate, facing outside or inside, Plan B for the chance we don’t find each other, etc. All this edge case thinking makes you appear overconcerned to others.

Most of all, you need to be explicit your contact won’t be able to reach you beforehand.

4. Goodbye Podcast

I spent this whole summer listening to Philosophize This! podcast. It’s a great way to wonder off of work-crowded thinking and walk into the city alley.

Now, that opportunity is all gone.

How am I supposed to enjoy a metro ride now packed with annoyed strangers in commute?

As for Audiobook, I was using Overdrive to listen on my phone. And it turned out they didn’t support loading on laptop altogether. And let’s not romanticize anything. It didn’t boost my creativity or imagination, by walking with silence in a street of 4 lanes filled with 60km/hour gasoline cars.

5. No Uber

No Uber, nor Lyft, nor Bolt, nor Gett.

Taxi infrastructure is moving towards app driven. It’s particularly recommended in new countries where taxi drivers just rip tourists off. (I heard 1 tourist was charged 50 dollars instead of 50 lira in Turkey. That was a rip-off of $40).

Also in a rough neighborhood, you want to use Uber where they can track and monitor exactly where the taxi driver is going.

Even in Toronto, the only place you can grab a yellow taxi is downtown. If you live in a suburb, finding one on the road is out of luck. And we are only talking about a big city. In the countryside, apps will be the sure way to find a taxi.

This sounds not too big a deal in the ordinary routine. But I had an occasion to go to an emergency hospital recently. Having access to taxi ride can save your life when you most need it.

7. No Camera

I was so desperate when the phone broke on my trip. That meant I wouldn’t be able to take any travel photos. No great memory to look back at in 10 years.

For a while, I was substituting with a Photo Booth from my Macbook. It’s got about 6 megapixels. Not too shabby. It suffers in dark lighting (pretty much object nonexistent). But it comes out sharp enough in the blue sky. The only thing is you’d look weird. Very weird. I was a little self-conscious walking Jerusalem with a laptop on my hand. What if these soldiers with full machine guns think I am remote controlling a bomb…

Overthinking?

Another trick I learned was to find another solo traveler, and ask him to take a photo on my behalf. Ask him to send you that photo. They would be happy to take it. But about half of them would actually send you later. It’s the last resort favor. If they do, just be thankful:)

8. Smell the Sunset

No clock to check what time it was. It feels like going back in centuries of civilizations. Let sunlight dictates your life.

The side positive effect is you start to talk with strangers with more. It reminds me of an old pick up line of “excuse me madam, what time is it now?” If the person is straightforward and kind, she’d tell you what time it is. If cynic, they would give you skeptical eyes like uhhh you can just check your cellphone?

9. No Instagram Upload

It has become my ritual to upload a photo of the country I visit. Unfortunately, you cant upload photos on browser Instagram. Well, you can if you turn your account into a business account. For everyone else, you can only browse the timeline and live story. I have no idea what the decision making behind. But I imagine it was to combat the spread of stock photos or marketer hijack of the platform.

With it being out of service, Facebook became my only friend. An old friend is sometimes is your best friend.

10. Whatsapp Destroyed

My Whatsapp was destroyed. I had no cellphone number at that point. When you access the site via browser, they ask you to read QR code with your mobile app. This was killing me. I cant be the only one who doesn’t have a phone, come onnn.

I was using Line too, and this one was saved fortunately since I had an email login setup beforehand. With Whatsapp, you will need your phone even after you install Whatsapp Apps onto your laptop.

Goodbye my friends on Whatsapp, until the day my baby new number gets to see the light.

11. Annoy Flight Attendant Check-In

After a while of taking Photo Booth and carrying my laptop as I walked, it almost became my second nature to carry this as part of my body.

That wasn’t the case for others.

Most of you check into the flight with your smartphone QR code now. They send you the ticket and you show the downloaded pdf. You then have to show it through the custom and security check for about 4 times. I was carrying the PDF file on my laptop screen and showing it to the guy. But often time, the scanner is attached to the table and you have to slide scan it from the top. The flight attendants really didn’t like this. Some tried to scan it. Some just gave up right away and started typing away my passport numbers on a computer stopping the whole flow of the smooth line. She really didn’t like this.

12. Locked Out of Websites

So many online services ask for text messages. I needed to give my phone numbers for my bank, PayPal, Google, etc. They all started to ask for my text messages for skeptic login from unknown countries. It’s a rightful precaution. Deadly to my circumstance. I was so closed to being locked out of my own account.

Coinbase which I have set up Authenticator App for 2-factor authentication was completely out of luck. I needed to ask the customer service to let me in.

After all this incidence, I decided to put 1 extra phone number of my family member in Canada in all major services’ contact list. You have seen the emergency contact in the form right. I never bothered up until now. But its importance is no joke. Lessons learned.

13. Your Friend Hates You

I was ok more or less with no phone. It was an experiment after all. BUT people around me who had cellphones hated it. They cant reach me to meet on the street. This thorough preplanning beforehand was annoying. Worst of all, it sucks not being able to change the plan easily. It was to be a punctual-or-else approach. Running 20 minutes late was out of the discussion.

14. Technology is Your Friend

Just like anything, we have to treat technology like your friend. Even your best soulmate can become tiresome if you hang out for 24 hours. You will need some space for your own thinking. But that doesn’t mean you want to get rid of your friends entirely.

Our technology is the same thing. You need to keep the right distance between “it” and “you”. Know its best strength and be ready to ask for help when needed. But also feel free to ask to leave you some space when needed.

This is the technology-life-balance:)