Your Unwired Vacation
You want to really get away. But wherever you go, you feel tethered to your office. Phone, fax, Internet – all wires lead back to the office.
You want to go where you can get unwired. Where anyone who knows the phrase "capital depreciation" cannot reach you.
Chelsea Mauldin knows what it's like to be out of reach. She has boated upriver through Panama's Darien jungle. She also happens to be the editor of Fodor's.com, and knows where to go for an "unwired" vacation.
Just for the record, her dream of true escape is "to decamp back to one of the small islands east of Bali and try, for the third time, to finish The Brothers Karamozov."
First, two general tips from Mauldin.
Go on a cruise: "Head out to sea," she urges. "It's not so much that you're actually out of touch with the world. Most cruise vessels have ship-to-shore phones. But, surrounded by miles of ocean, you'll feel out of reach."
She advises sticking with smaller vessels and lines unlikely to boast satellite links or cabin phones. Good bets include American Canadian Caribbean Line, which cruises the East Coast; Alaska Sightseeing, which specializes in Inside Passage cruises, and Clipper Cruise Line, which does a bit of both.
Go to a national park: Says Mauldin, "According to this guy my producer knows who is the guru of all things cellular – don't ask – more than 95 percent of the US is now covered by the various networks, with the uncovered areas being near neither a major population center nor an interstate highway." This means head West, to the national parks.
And now, Chelsea Mauldin's Five Off-The-Grid Getaways.
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