Forging bonds over no-Wi-Fi getaways

Leave gadgets, devices and even board games behind to connect with yourself and your kids

- Avantika Bhuyan

Our no-network holiday happened by chance. We landed up in Panna for four days in the wild. Tired of planning the usual birthday parties, I decided on a camping trip for my daughter's 13th. Her bag was packed with Nintendo Switch and my iPad. I bet she had been imagining four days of no studies, and of snatching time between treks and nature walks to catch up on games and some of her favourite shows. However, the jungle stepped in and foiled all her plans.

As soon as we reached the camp, we stopped receiving mobile network, and the place offered only patchy Wi-Fi. I could see her jaw drop... what were we going to do for four days with no connectivity whatsoever? "I can't even Google. You don't want me to find out names of trees and birds that we see here! Fine, I won't learn anything," came the petulant response. My teen wasn't the only one facing this predicament. Another set of amused parents were watching their son turn into a gymnast as he precariously balanced one foot on a wooden plank placed across a little stream, waving his phone frantically in the air. As if the network was some sort of nebulous gas, hovering around us, which could be caught only in one position at one specific spot and sucked into the phone. The first half of the day went in sulking and complaining, but given that there was little anyone could do about the network, we had to make the best of the situation. And we did.