We had a lovely, wonderful, amazing, restful trip to Hawaii in March.
The one thing I noticed, though, was that wireless internet was ubiquitous. Even at our sweet secluded little B&B near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Hale Ohia).
I suppose the problem isn’t that there was wireless internet, the problem was that I was using it while I was on vacation.
I sometimes used it for recreation (goofing around on Ravelry.com looking for a pattern for the yarn I brought). We sometimes used it for vacation research – for instance, I used it to find a highlight on Kauai – the amazing quilt/fabric shop – Kapaia Stitchery. And we used it to keep up with local/current events (wait, was that an earthquake? OMG).
But we used a little too much to keep up with work. You might argue that some of it was in self-defense, we were clearing the email brush to prevent any stress conflagrations at the time of re-entry. Think of it as a back-burn or firebreak. Yet, that strikes me as the self-delusion of an email/work addict. And, to be fair, sometimes the strategy backfired – the email traffic might also ignite little stress events during the R&R, drawing us into the work mind we intended to leave at the office.
We both do client work and have folks who depend on us, which makes going incommunicado a challenge and a little bit scary. I do believe that setting things up so they succeed especially in my absence is a sign of good work. So, perhaps I didn’t trust myself enough to leave completely? I’ll have to keep trying and keep vacationing to solve this conundrum.
Do you find checking in on vacation restful or stressful? What’s your optimum prescription for rest and sanity with email on vacation?