The smartphone has revolutionised the way we travel, with reviews, guides and itineraries just taps away. But is there anything to gain from swapping digital convenience for offline immersion? Cyber junkie Crystal Lin spends a smartphone-free weekend in Paris to find out.
About a decade ago, I spent half a year studying abroad in Paris. I wandered down the city’s narrow alleyways, taking in the sights – local teenagers smoking outside candlelit bistros, tourists with paper guidebooks hurrying across the Seine, quaint street markets selling everything from fresh fruit to antique tableware.
Back then, I was armed only with an iPhone 2 and no data, which meant I could only use my phone to look at a static map of the city or take low-resolution photos. I added money to my local Sim card at local tabacs, former tobacco shops found all over Paris, to make calls and texts.
Fast forward to 2024 and I, like everyone I know, am in a codependent relationship with my smartphone. 
I live in London and travel often, but I can be hundreds of miles away and still be buried in my device, scrolling through the same Instagram posts, chatting in the same groups, always accessible to family, friends, colleagues. I wonder whether anyone ever truly feels on holiday anymore.
In a bid to reclaim a bit of what I felt wandering Paris a decade ago – the feeling of stumbling across something new, unexpected, beautiful – I decide to have a go at spending a weekend in the city, smartphone-free.
I plan to spend two days without using phone data – no Google maps, social media, reviews or Uber. I’m travelling with my husband, who has gamely decided to join me in the experiment.
On Saturday morning, we head to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris. We agree to put our phones in airplane mode once we arrive at the station.
The first few minutes are the most difficult. I fight the urge to grab my phone to check something, anything – to scroll through Instagram or Reddit, to put on some music.
Moving through the city without the numbing distraction of a phone is both liberating and strangely frightening. I feel unplugged and exposed without the comforting barrier of my headphones and music.
The train ride from St. Pancras to Gare du Nord is uneventful, though a bit boring. I catch up on reading and then spend about half an hour observing the French countryside, which I discover is quite beautiful. For a second, I feel like a traveller from the 18th century.
As we pull into Gare du Nord, I eavesdrop on groups of gossiping French schoolchildren returning from London and am pleasantly surprised that I can still understand some basic phrases. “En ligne, s’il vous plait!”, their teacher yells out.
Paris is as I remembered – lively street scenes set against the backdrop of stately, Haussmanian buildings. We follow the zigs and zags of centuries-old boulevards to our hotel in the fifth arrondissement.
We decide on a restaurant for dinner the old-fashioned way – by asking for a recommendation from the hotel staff. After dinner, we wander into little square filled with students, some chatting, some filming Tiktoks. London feels very far away.
The weekend becomes saturated by moments of presence. We grab coffees in the morning from a local café, and instead of scrolling through our phones, we sit by the window and watch passersby.
The smell of fresh bread leads us to a boulangerie down the street, where we queue up to buy delicious pastries without thinking to check reviews.
In the afternoon, we settle on lawn chairs in the Jardin du Luxembourg and watch as children launch miniature sailboats across the pond.
With no itinerary in mind, we wander into hidden courtyards and take the time to read the many historic plaques found all over the city.
By evening, however, we are tired and lost after scrambling our way through Chatelet, a notoriously confusing metro station. We spend about twenty minutes trying to orient ourselves.
“Maybe just this once?” My husband reaches for his phone, but I am adamant. We finally find our way and laugh nervously about how much our minds have been outsourced to technology.
By the end of the weekend, I am simultaneously looking forward to and dreading returning to my “real life” in London, though in many ways, life without a smartphone felt far more real.
We board our train back to London and I switch my phone on, wondering what messages and news cycles I might have missed. I discover, anticlimactically, that I missed very little.
As a society, we seem hungry for permission to put our phones down and disconnect – so-called dumbphones are becoming popular with Gen Z, and several companies in the UK offer digital detox holidays.
Living without a smartphone might not be a lasting solution to screen addiction, but gaining back a few hours or days, especially on holiday, might be the temporary antidote we all need.