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My 'work from the beach' fantasy in Bali ended when I realized I was just a tourist with a laptop.

It took a local cafe owner in Canggu telling me 'you people never look up from your screens' to see I was missing the whole point of being somewhere new, so how do you actually disconnect and experience a place?
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3 Comments
wright.drew
Oh man, that hits home. I did the same thing in Lisbon last year, just hunched over my phone mapping the next cafe with strong wifi. What finally worked for me was a dumb rule: phone stays in the hotel safe until sunset. @nora535, I get the fear of losing an idea, but I started carrying a tiny paper notebook for that exact itch. It forced me to actually look at the tiles on the buildings and hear the street music instead of just staring at a map.
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kai_west
kai_west1mo ago
I used to be that person... now I leave my laptop at the hotel and just walk around.
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nora535
nora5351mo ago
But @kai_west, what if you get a great idea and need to write it down right away?
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