There's a quiet rebellion happening in travel right now. Pinterest tracks rising interest in "analog living", and Airbnb listings that boast no cell service book out months in advance. The message is clear: plenty of us want to leave the phone in the bag, and Sunset's roundup of eight offline outdoor activities is a handy starting point for anyone planning a lower-tech escape.
First up is birding, which needs nothing more than a pair of binoculars — the piece champions NOCS, lightweight hand-held optics that turn you into a citizen scientist with zero notifications. If you can't resist a little screen time, the Merlin Bird ID app works like Shazam for birdsong and is worth downloading before you go dark.
Photography gets the analog treatment too. A thrifted film camera makes you think before you shoot, since every frame costs money and intention. If you want the look without the darkroom, the Camp Snap is an instant digital camera with no viewing screen — you simply look through the viewfinder and commit.
For a deeper connection to a place, the suggestions turn to plants and fungi. Joining a guided forage, such as one run by Flora & Funghi in the Bay Area, teaches you the names and uses of what's growing around you. Two books come recommended: Botany in a Day by Luc Satterlee, which promises flower-based plant identification after a single afternoon of attention, and David Arora's mushroom classic All That the Rain Promises and More, which turns a damp forest walk into a treasure hunt.
If you like a keepsake, there's plant pressing — specimens flattened between book pages like a school project, or cyanotype prints of kelp and seaweed for a blue-tinted record of the coast. Neither requires a photo of yourself in front of anything.
After dark, a rotating paper star chart replaces the stargazing app. Sunset's own digital editor swears by hers, and the logic is airtight: many of the best dark-sky spots have no phone signal anyway, so learn to navigate by Orion.
Finally, two habits that work anywhere. Pack a travel watercolor set — even clumsy sketches teach your hand what a lens never captures, and compact kits like the Tobios save space. And swap your notes app for a paper journal; the writer's pick is the Leuchtturm1917 Travel Journal, a German-made notebook with numbered pages that suits everything from solo dinners to backpacking trips. You end up with a physical artifact of the trip instead of a folder in the cloud.
Why does this matter for travellers? Because the best-remembered trips are the ones you were actually present for. None of these ideas demand gear obsession or expert skills — a pair of binoculars, a notebook and a willingness to slow down will do. They suit campers, road-trippers and anyone heading somewhere remote where coverage is patchy by default. Pick one or two for your next getaway and treat the phone as the backup, not the plan.
