Vacation Robo-Post: Your Media Vacation

A vacation, for me, is for spending time with my family. We bring DVDs with us for when we want to watch stuff, but usually just rest and play. Board games and card games are a big hit usually. I have to have my cell with me in case of emergency at work, but I am lucky to have a boss and coworkers who generally respect my resting time! But it is rare that I send any emails. It's vacation - I generally just send a postcard (or pretend that the home world of work and responsibilities doesn't even exist). . .

My first admission is this - I have never in my adult life been on a vacation. I have taken weekend trips with my daughter to San Diego or Sedona, but we live less than 5 hours away from these destinations and I have never been gone away from home for more than 2 nights (for pleasure). I have, on the other hand, taken many business trips.

So - I do not know if I am qualified to answer this question. I do take my Blackberry everywhere I go (movies, dinner, etc.) and I check it frequently (never during the film, never during the meal)so I feel that I would likely take it with me on vacation and check after the child was asleep or in clandestine moments alone.

Dear Real-James,

Robo-James has probably failed to inform you that the coast of California has fallen into the sea while you are away on vacation.

I am kind of like idigress. My wife is a workaholic and not a traveler....except for work. Our vacation time has been limited to visiting family out of state and they are fully functional media-wise.

On the other hand, my son and I are involved in Boy Scouts and high adventure trips, monthly weekend campouts and week long summer camp are usually taken in places that cut us off from civilization. We are lucky in some places if we can get cell phone reception. It is possible to get away from it all if you want.

The only vacation I've ever taken, with my own money, not paid for by parents or friends, was in the south and south west of Japan, a beautiful quiet part of the country. I'm a photographer so anytime I go ANYWHERE I have my camera with me so I'm already loaded down with an extra bag of mechanical stuff. I don't really want to lug a laptop with me as well.

I do take my cell phone and carry that with me on the off hand chance that there's an emergency at home and to save me from having to use hotel long distance. YIKES!

I go on vacation to get away from work. Watching TV, surfing the 'net, checking my personal email, etc., are not things I'm trying to get away from when I'm on vacation. Sometimes having time off work is a good chance for me to get caught up on the things that have stacked up in the Tivo.

I don't take my cell phone on the golf course. I take it with me hiking, but only in case of emergency.

Put me down as a media addict. I get the itch big-time if I get to say, 2pm without having checked my email. I'm a freelance writer who has a fairly predictable schedule--checking email is not an imperative by any means (I don't even have a PDA, nor do I usually carry my cell phone when I leave my home--hell, I use a hanging calendar to track my appointments). And, as long as I'm online, I'll check Yahoo news and a couple newspaper sites and/or blogs. I was in Chicago for 10 days last month (granted, staying with various friends and family, not at a hotel), and I managed to keep up most of my blogs (TPM, Swampland, Tuned In, Howard Kurtz, Dan Froomkin), as well as the daily political chats I read.

At the very, very least, I need to scan a newspaper. These are things that, overall, bring me pleasure, though, so I don't sweat it too much.

P.S. I do try to avoid our president's voice at all costs while on vacation.

I like to know what's going on in the world. As a journalist I feel like I need to know the headlines when I'm on vacation if I don't have Internet access (unless it's free, I'm too cheap to spend $10 to use it for a day when I'll only use it for an hour) I'll turn on the TV and see what is happening. Then after they beat it into the ground *coughCNNcough* I'm on my way. But I sit at work checking news sites every so often. Like I'm doing right now. Ha!

I find that i watch a TON of ESPN from the hotel room when on vacation. Other than that my fav part of vaca is having enough time to read the newspaper and drink a latte every morning. That tends to be the extent of my electronics when out of town.

My only real vacation recently was a cruise a few months ago for my honeymoon. I was looking forward to the time away from my cell phone and work responsibilities, but since I'm incredibly compulsive about my email, I figured I'd check it sometime during the week using the ship's online lounge. But surprisingly, the itch to do so never came, and our week was completely computer-free. The only media we really found ourselves exposed to were the pre-programmed movies and sitcom re-runs on the ship's TV channels. Of course, we caught up on our regular shows with a little help from our DVR afterwards.