Embracing Airplane Mode

My grades entered, classroom cleaned, bags packed, AP Reading over, and I was off on another awesome adventure with students to Europe! This was my third time taking students across the pond with EF Tours, and this time my seniors requested Italy—so we settled on traveling from Athens to Rome! We definitely focused heavily on the ancient historical sites of both Greece and Italy, while making plenty of time for amazing food along the way.

Now, if you’ve ever traveled to Europe— you know the preparation that goes into the journey. Our students had to quickly learn about bathrooms with bidets, new plugs and converters, and to ask for still—not sparkling— water.

Leading a group of students is always stressful, particularly when the cell service gets spotty. Bussing from the Parthenon to Mycenae, from Pompeii to Rome, and so forth, meant lots of downtime without WiFi. European hotels often have routers that get overloaded when a tour group all tries to log on at the same time. 

Which equals bored kiddos. 

It happened to me too. My own first instinct when the conversation wanes or the highway turns flat is to pick up the phone and check emails, scroll through Facebook, or go down a Reddit-rabbit hole. Admittedly, this is a terrible habit and not a good look on the responsible group leader.

But those options disappear in the rural areas of Greece and Italy, and for the first time in quite awhile, I found myself letting my mind wander.

After about a day and a half, my inadvertent digital detox had worked wonders! I was no longer checking in to every historical landmark we visited, no longer taking pictures of every dish of pasta I consumed, no longer taking selfies with every Greco-Roman statue we encountered at the Vatican. I called my husband every night at hotels to briefly check in, and made sure we got group shots at the Colosseum— but other than that— my phone stayed zipped up in my purse! 

And you know what? I enjoyed our trip all the more for it! But more importantly, this break from the everyday connectivity of the Internet underlies the importance of travel: to just get away and recharge.

We talk so much about mental health and the importance of maintaining it, but that’s so easy to say and not commit to during the busy school year. Between school, deadlines, extracurriculars, keeping up with friends, keeping up with parents and basic hygiene (please?), who has the time to check out and just zone out for a bit? It has become so much easier for us to sacrifice our own precious “me” time to keep all our plates spinning in the air. 

I live for my feeds, between: work emails, personal emails, Facebook, Instagram, BuzzFeed News and Trevor Noah. My day is pretty full before students show up to my room. Taking time for myself is usually in the form of grocery shopping weekly, or staring at the wall for a bit during my planning period. And it is so hard to not take that small piece of free time and watch random YouTube videos for half an hour. 

But being on summer break, and taking my kids to a region with spotty WiFi forced me to stop. Travel takes us out of our routine and pace, and it sometimes makes us re-evaluate ourselves in the most important ways. Being bored forced me to look out the window and try to figure out the signs were saying in Italian, to relax and enjoy being free of deadlines and obligations for a bit, and to have some amazing, long conversations with our tour guide, Riccardo. I even ended up learning that Ricardo is also a huge Bowie fan! I have not had a good, old-fashioned nerd-out session with a new friend in years, and it made me feel somehow lighter and unencumbered by the responsibilities that I’ve come to wear as part of my persona.

These moments felt longer, stronger, and more meaningful than scrolling through Pinterest, and the feeling of relaxation I came back to the US with is something I desperately needed after a crazy school year. It’s moments like those that recharge us, and give us the energy to draw on when times get tough. Boredom is such an important tool for our brains, in allowing us to both power down for a bit, and even daydream. And in turn, this makes us so much more productive when we do get back on task. 

Our summer break is really such a gift, such a sustained period of time dedicated to relaxation and family! I know that many of you may plan to take a summer course, prep for the SATs, or get in those much needed community service hours—and that’s great! But do not discount that you need this time to expand your horizons and your mind.

And the best part is that travel doesn’t have to be international! I encourage all of you to travel this summer, whether that means a family vacation to an awesome destination like the Bahamas, a friends-only roadtrip to a local destination, or maybe just exploring aspects of your hometown, like a local museum or new coffee shop. Anywhere you can go that forces you give up habit and comfort for stimulation outside of your screen! 

And the best part is, you can always go back and tag your adventures #latergram, and it’s like you were never checked out in the first place!