My battery dead, I (briefly) rediscovered the joy of phone-free travel

3 months ago 28

“Travellers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your phones!”

I’m channelling Karl Marx as I step out of the Apple Store on London’s busy Regent Street, though really I shouldn’t be in such high spirits. On the first day of a six-week rail trip through Europe, with a Eurail pass loaded onto my phone, I’ve discovered its battery is dying. Hence, the dash to Regent Street aboard an iconic red double-decker bus, thanks to the directions provided by the phone’s maps app.

“It’ll take two to three hours to fit a new battery,” says an infeasibly young staff member, and then it hits me. Hours alone in London – without a phone.

But hang on. I spent decades of my adult life travelling without devices, and got along fine without them. How hard can it be? In fact, this could be a good thing, a rebirth of my ability to use my own wits on the road. And that starts with seeking advice from locals. Before my designated “genius” disappears, I ask where I can find a good coffee around here. “But not Costa Coffee,” I plead, referring to a popular nationwide chain.

He gets my drift, gives me brief directions to somewhere behind the building, then disappears. I’m on my own, sans phone. Outside on Regent Street, I take a left turn and head into terra incognita.

I’m given an instant reminder of London’s endless capacity to surprise as I discover an attractive fenced park with an oval-shaped leafy interior. It’s a warm sunny day around lunchtime, so its benches are dotted with office workers taking a break.

Without my phone, I can’t look up the square’s name, but that’s resolved by a large sign at the entrance. This is Hanover Square, laid out in 1717 and dedicated to King George I. The sign points out Georgian townhouses surviving around the perimeter, and mentions the park’s statue of Pitt the Younger was almost pulled down by protesters in 1831. Good to know.

Beyond the square is a courtyard connected to a modern office building, set with tables for people using adjacent cafes. Here I find the staffer’s tip, an outlet of the Watch House cafe chain (London-based and a cut above Costa). I buy a long black and sit in the sunshine – nothing is better than London on a sunny spring day – and kill time reading a book alongside my new office worker pals.

A passing stranger then directs me to a nearby sandwich shop and I eat my lunch on a bench, people-watching. My eye is caught by a low shed across the other side of the park, which I assume might be a gardener’s hut – but no, the explanatory sign further informs me it’s a historic cabman’s shelter.

Time has ticked on, and I can soon retrieve my phone. I have been warned, however, that it might have reverted to factory settings. As a precaution, I step over to Oxford Circus Tube station to glance at the Underground map. I had planned to visit the National Portrait Gallery after this, and it turns out it’d be easy – just take a Bakerloo Line train two stops to Charing Cross. But my phone has not reset itself. I’m shortly reunited with it, plugged back into the 21st century reality of instant knowledge at one’s fingertips, and it’s comforting, damn it. So much for my new golden age of device-free travel.

But it was fun wandering around phoneless for a while, at the mercy of chance, explanatory signage and the kindness of strangers. All I needed was one of those old London A-Z map books for the illusion of past travel to have been complete.

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