> In retrospect I do kinda miss _not_ having cell reception on vacations, as it was easier to disconnect from stuff.
In retrospect I do miss _not_ having the internet or cell service at all. It's part of why I like to watch shows and movies from the 80s or 90s. It's funny because I love technology as much as anyone else on HN, but at the same time my idea of the perfect retired life is one that is almost entirely offline.
I don't know if its still the case, but about ten years ago I took ViaRail Canada from Vancouver to Toronto. It was a four-day train ride (with a brief stopover on Bamff) and the vast majority of it was remote Canada crossing the Rockies, with no mobile network coverage.
I asked the train staff about WiFi onboard, and they said that they didn't have it and the preferred it that way. People take their train, not to get from A to B, but to disconnect and meet other people, read books, or watch the beautiful landscape going by. If people had Internet access, they'd be glued to their devices and wouldn't meet fellow travelers, and that's the magic of this line.
(They even said that their corporate management wanted WiFi in the trains so that the staff could digitize a lot of their paperwork, but the crew was resisting it because they believed it was exactly the lack of connectivity that keep people taking the train for vacation.)
In retrospect I do miss _not_ having the internet or cell service at all. It's part of why I like to watch shows and movies from the 80s or 90s. It's funny because I love technology as much as anyone else on HN, but at the same time my idea of the perfect retired life is one that is almost entirely offline.