I’m a Xennial working mom of school-aged twins, and I’m pretty much always online.
As a freelance journalist and travel writer, I carry my laptop with me literally everywhere — just in case I might squeeze in 15 minutes of work when I’m, say, waiting at the car wash. My phone is always in my hand for all kinds of reasons, most especially so I’m available to my kids in case of an emergency. I’m never really off duty. And yes, I’m also just plain tech-addled, like the rest of us.
So when I boarded Canyon Spirit — a luxury train journey through the American West built specifically around slowing down and embracing analog pleasures — I knew it would be a novelty for me.
There was no WiFi on board
The trip stretches across three days and was intentionally designed to encourage presence. There’s no WiFi on board, entirely by design. The assignment is to unplug.
This was going to be a challenge for me under the best circumstances. I’m not someone naturally predisposed toward digital detoxes, but I was optimistic the setting would help.
Outside my train window, snowy mountain landscapes in Colorado slowly gave way to Utah’s red rock canyons, with the Colorado River winding for hours alongside us. It was totally serene, with meals and drinks served right at our seats and domed glass railcars for panoramic vistas from every angle.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be an objectively terrible time for me to be unreachable.
It turned out to be a comically bad time to unplug
As it turned out, my husband and I were trying to negotiate an offer on a potential new home back in Los Angeles. We were trying to go back and forth with DocuSign contracts and nuanced discussions about contingencies on what might be the biggest purchase of our entire lives.
At the same time, we were also dealing with unrelated drama involving our current house — a mess that required keeping detailed communications logs for a potential future legal case.
Then, because there was apparently still a bit more room for maximum chaos, my son came down with a fever and vomiting back at home.
Suddenly, my husband wasn’t just solo parenting while I was out of town — he was solo parenting a sick child (and doing all the unpleasant laundry that comes along with that) while trying to get the other child across town to school… and simultaneously juggling all the other circuslike logistics of this utterly chaotic week.
I felt awful about the timing of my trip, and threw on an extremely generous helping of guilt and worry for good measure.
Meanwhile, I was aboard a luxury train designed for leisurely observation and reflection.
So while others were stepping onto the open-air observation deck to admire dramatic scenery and breathe in fresh mountain air, I was frequently out there for a different purpose: holding my phone toward the sky and trying to get my T-Mobile satellite feature to work.
I suspect this wasn’t exactly the intended use case for those spectacular observation decks, so unique to the purpose of this particular journey.
Though I didn’t fully unplug, it was still a good trip
And still, after all this, I actually don’t think the trip was a failure for me.
No, I absolutely did not return home from my trip transformed into a person who suddenly wants to disappear into the wilderness and live off the grid. That will never be me.
I also didn’t fully unplug — and that’s OK. It wasn’t a contest, and it’s simply not possible for some people. I checked in as much as I could, given the circumstances, and handled what I could remotely. When I had pockets of connectivity, I provided updates on my next expected WiFi patch.
And yes, I still worried. I still felt guilty about everything unfolding back at home. But being somewhere that removed some of my usual options changed the rhythm of my days in a few ways.
At many stages, I just accepted that connection was out of the realm of possibility, and I found myself sitting quietly and staring out the window longer than I normally would. I noticed all those dramatically changing colors in the landscape. I caught the resonant, intoxicating smell of pine in higher elevations. I exchanged perspectives with my fellow travelers over meals and drinks.
Maybe the lesson was just that there was value in being forced — however reluctantly — to loosen my grip for a little while.
And although I couldn’t do much about the stress waiting for me back home, I got to carry it through red-rock canyons and snow-covered mountains instead of through another ordinary week of multitasking.
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