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posted by katie f.

I just returned from spending 7 days and nights with my honey in Belize on the island of Ambergris Caye. The vacation was many things, one of the most significant being unplugged. Technology makes our lives better and I embrace it but never underestimate the power of a good unplugging.  We knew going into this to fully savor our vacation we needed to unplug. No work emails, no work phone calls, limited personal calls, no cars (only golf carts) and no Internet. And certainly no Roomba to clean our floors.  We placed our last cell phone calls and sent our last Blackberry messages from the Miami International Airport, boarded a plane and off we went. Our condo had no phone, no Internet connection, and our cells and Blackberry would not work (and yes we checked them, multiple times). Ambergris Caye is unplugged I think deliberately because people crave the relaxation,  and also just by nature of the location. Take the electricity for example. It’s expensive so most places except for the most expensive hotels forgo energy-sucking appliances like dishwashers. I won’t lie - it was unsettling at first. Knowing that in the case of an emergency at home it would require a phone call to the condo office and a message and not a direct cell call was freaky. Not being able to check the Internet and news sites was also strange - I never realized that not only do I keep up with friends and family primarily through blogs and email, but also just keeping up with the goings-on of the world. 48 hours into the vacation we were both a little freaked at the abrupt cutoff.  But by Tuesday all was well.  I stopped missing Salon.com, Perezhilton.com and other online news outlets and my boyfriend stopped turning his Blackberry on every day “just to make sure it won’t work”.   It was refreshing to have the constant stream of information (emails, phone calls, voice mails, and often depressing news announcements) stop for just a little while - it let my brain rest. It was also a good opportunity to pause and realize that I am so fortunate to be living in 2007 where I can go online to see photos of my best friend’s sons who otherwise due to geography I would miss growing up. The lesson to be learned here? I embrace and love technology of course, but I will never underestimate the power of a good unplugging.