Contact on a trip

When my 97 year old grandmother died, it was the day before my sister and I were going to London, it was 1985. My grandmother loved to travel. She went to Europe by ship several times in the 50’s and 60’s. So my mother, who also loved to travel, refused to let us cancel our trip. We literally went from the wake to the airport. While at Westminster Abbey, we said a prayer for her enjoyed our trip as best as possible. My mother went on a cruise 10 days before she passed away from cancer with my dad, brother and SIL. She said she could sit at home or she could sit on the deck of the ship. The Doctor said it was fine as there wasn’t anything else they could do for her. She loved to travel. My dad is 98 and in good shape. He lives with my sister who is nearby to us, we visit at least once a week. We have an agreement that if either of us are on vacation and he passes, we will not contact each other. A Mass will be said and he will be buried. He is aware of our agreement and agrees with it wholeheartedly. Before any trip we always visit, just in case. Our other siblings all live out of state, so Basically it is her and I keeping him occupied, fed, and Happy, so there would be no guild if we missed his funeral. My children would be there so I don’t worry about us not.

While we are away, we e-mail family and sometimes FaceTime with our girls if the timing is right or we are with family in Croatia. We check our e-mail everyday so they know how to contact us and with what info, it has been discussed. In previous years, my husband would FaceTime with his brother everyday while we were away, no matter where we were, because they talked everyday. Sadly, he passed away last year so that ended that ritual. Going forward, and when we can travel again, the issue will be discussed again, but That’s fine. Circumstances change and we can change with them.

Interesting perspective Douglas but we're on opposite ends of the opinion scale on this one. I'm good at compartmentalizing and in most cases I don't let things bother me.

• Two years ago I was in England when my 20 year old daughter called to let us know that the cancer was back in my dog and the cancer was very aggressive. In my opinion it wouldn't have been fair to my daughter to let her deal with it alone and so we had daily calls to guide her as well as calm her down. I also contacted a very good friend to help out. It was a very emotional week and the day we came home we had to take my dog straight to the vet to be put down, however that trip is still one of my most memorable for all the right reasons.
• If my house ever caught fire; yes, I want to know. There are things to take care of such as contacting your insurance provider, etc. Friends and family are great, but you can't abandon them them when they're trying to deal with your problems.
• The ugly American? Why bother being angry about it? Control what you can control and don't be bothered with what you can't.
• Work, I don't typically take calls, but I tend to put in an hour or two every morning before my wife wakes up to keep me up to date. For me, it helps me enjoy me time away more rather than worrying about the work piling up while I'm away.

My vacation time is sacred to me, but for me, it's not at the expense
of forgetting that I still have a life back home.

If I could afford it I would get a different smart phone so I could not be called and only give the number to my trusted person.

Douglas, how about just a cheap phone to stay in touch. Or Skype, if you carry a tablet or laptop. You can keep your smart phone if you want it for research, but don't answer calls.

We typically don't carry any kind of device, but on our last European trip we did take a tablet so I could Skype with my parents. My mother's health was precarious, and it was important to my dad that we keep in touch. Only my dad and one other trusted relative had the number. I did check email regularly though.

I will say we found the tablet handy for other things. Our usual practice was to use hotel computers for email; having the device made things easier, although I had to keep reminding myself (and my husband) not to succumb to falling down the internet rabbit hole.

I know our ways wouldn't work for everyone, but you'd be surprised at how many people say they envy us for not carrying a cell phone.

I am in another direction as far as communication. We are not a family of constant phone calls, but I am the mom travelling the world solo, so it is I who makes a point of posting an Instagram photo of my day so they know I am alive. If I am going to be out of communication for a while, (like weeks in Africa which 5 or more years ago has little to no reception), I give them the company's phone number and say get in touch with them if there is an emergency. They can then find my driver and I. But do they worry about me then? No. I give them a copy of my itinerary with contact info and they trust that is sufficient.
Work never phones or texts.

The house care is the weakest link. I would need to know if there was an emergency for the reasons Allan mentions. I had a neighbour email me that our joint fence had collapsed and what to do about it? It is usually me with the problem solving initiatives, but I told her if it bugs her, prop it up or get it repaired for the winter. I was angry that she bothered me with it at all rather than just fixing it.
As to illnesses or death, which is a rare thing, I think my family tends to wait until a better time.

If you manage your personal/ family relationships and communications (and your home environment/ upkeep) well prior to the trip, the chance of getting anything but completely unexpected emergency phone calls should in theory be rather minute. People who know you very well (and you're eye to eye with them) likely temper their expectations when trying to reach you overseas, and they also know when they absolutely need to make that call and when it can wait until you're back. Obviously if you don't tell your coworkers or friends (or any infrequent contacts) that you're off the grid, you can get an unexpected phone call - so it's best everyone knows that you're really not available unless it's a real emergency.

Once we leave the states the cell phones are turned off. We do check email each evening if convenient. I go back to how we traveled in the 60s -- no cellphone, no internet -- and we got along just fine with one or two phone calls. If we are in the middle of Germany there is little that we can do to handle a problem at home. It is a rare situation that cannot wait until we return in a couple of weeks. But we also do not currently feel the need to be constantly connected via facebook, etc., so being disconnected for a few week doesn't create any problems for us.

We have two teenage girls who we sometimes leave behind when we travel, so we have to be in contact with person they stay with. We use Whats App on our cell phones.

We text our children upon arrival at our destination so they know we made it. If we’re staying in one location, they probably won’t hear from us again. If we’re moving around, we’ll let them know when we reached the next destination. Other friends, family, and work have no idea where we went until we return. In an emergency family has our cell numbers. On only one trip were we in regular contact with family and that was because of a medical issue with family member. We take vacations to get away, not stay connected 24/7. Most of the time my phone is turned off. I’ll check emails and social media in the evening when we’re back at the hotel for the evening.

We get an international plan on one phone and a SIM card for the other phone. We also use What’sApp. Presently, I am using it to keep in touch with friends in Mexico and Greece who are not traveling to the US due to COVID.
We travel extensively for a month at a time, sometimes for six weeks, and have had several medical emergencies, so the international plan has been needed. Texts are free and we always let our kids know we arrived safely.
One trip, on two consecutive nights, we received bad news about family members but were glad they got ahold of us.

Once we leave the states the cell phones are turned off. We do check
email each evening if convenient.

We do the same. In fact, we only had pay-as-you-go flip phones until last year so we didn't even travel abroad with our phones. I checked mail on an itouch, and my DH did so on his ipad. I did leave an itinerary and contact info for all hotels we were staying at with a trusted family member in case of a dire emergency.

We also don't freely give our cell numbers out so that helps too. Folks we know who are likely to overcall them are told that the best way to contact us is via messaging, email, or our landline at home (there's a specific reason we still have one of those.)

My Dad passed away on our last day in London, a number of years ago. The decision was made not to call us until we got home as there wasn't anything we could do about it from where we were except feel awful. ☹️

My parents are getting older, and always say not to worry about cancellation insurance on that account. They say if they die just before or during, why ruin my trip "after all honey, we'll still be dead. Have fun!".

And when my grandmother was ill we were heading to England. This was pre-electronic communication days. I left my hotel contact information with my mom, but she said she'd never call us. What could be done?

As far as fire and flood -- or unexpected tragedy -- my sister would tell us if we had to come home early. I trust her judgment to know if she says come home, I had better come home.

They say if they die just before or during, why ruin my trip "after
all honey, we'll still be dead. Have fun!".

I had to snicker to myself at this. Whenever I book a trip I let my 89 year old Mom know and with her dry sense of humour, she writes it in her calendar and remarks that it's a reminder to herself not to die while we're away.

My younger brother was found dead in his home when we were in Vienna - 4 days before the end of our trip. My other siblings decided to contact me because they knew one of his friends was trying to reach me through Facebook. Due to the circumstances of his death, we knew that the Medical Examiner would not be releasing his body before we got back, so we didn't try to change our return flight.

This was enough of a distraction for us to completely forget about a small-group tour to the Wachau Valley scheduled for the next day. When the guide called after waiting 10 minutes for us to show, I told him there was no way we could make it to the meet up place without even more delay- so he offered to swing by our hotel for us.

Our fellow passengers were two young Korean travel writers, a young American couple, and an older American couple (around our age). The younger folks weren't too bothered by the delay and detour, but the older Americans definitely gave us the stink eye as we climbed into the van. At that moment, I realized that I could very well have given that same stink eye to somebody else whose brother had just died.

Our guide was so gracious, and went out of his way to alleviate our embarrassment. At the end of the day, I explained to him what had happened. He said something along the lines of he always gives people the benefit of the doubt when they're running late. I did take his words to heart. You never know what people are going through.

My 94-year-old Mom was in the nursing home as we were planning our first RS tour and first visit to Italy. She was thrilled we were planning to go and said..."If I die while you're gone, I'll just tell them to put me on ice until you get back". She loved travel and in particular loved Italy so in no way wanted us to interrupt a trip for her death.

She did, in fact, get pneumonia about 3 weeks before we traveled and died on the Monday before we were set to leave on Wednesday. We (brother, SIL, their 2 adult kids and me) went, raised a glass of wine in a toast to her and enjoyed what we knew she would have loved.

On one Rick Steves tour I was on, one of the participants got a call on the first evening as we were walking to dinner that her dog had been hit by a car. The dog had been taken to it's regular vet and was not expected to make it. I was kind of shocked that she cancelled her trip and flew home but I guess each person has to do what makes them happy. According to her friends who continued on the trip the dog was gone before she got back.

Like some others, we turn our phones off when we leave the country, only turning them on to make reservations when needed. Our house minder and our kids have our itinerary and know how to contact us. Before he retired, DH would send out a work email saying when he would be away and would not be available. We check email daily, and send messages to the kids either by email or Hangouts. Tablets have been great for this.

Our 2 adult age daughters are aware whenever we go away and know our itinerary ... we'll text (if in the states) or use WhatsApp (if abroad) or maybe Facetime on the Ipad a few times during the trip (especially to send a picture of the incredible pasta dish from Italy or the plate of sardines fresh off the grill from the Algarve) and we try to check email daily ... at work, I'll leave a generic out-of-office reply and to contact other team members if any issues and my boss and co-worker have my personal email if they feel it necessary to contact me ... fortunately, have not received any bad news while away but would leave it up to my daughters good judgement on whether to let us know or keep it until we come home.

We leave behind a housesitter who is responsible for our menagerie -- horses, dog, cat, chickens -- so my phone is on because something weird always comes up, and, for random reasons, the dog always somehow needs a vet trip while we are away. But the sitter knows us well and only calls when there's something I actually need to know or give her direction on. One year it was "what do I do with the very dead chicken?".... which I thought was a valid question!

My husband's close friend passed away suddenly when we were in Spain a couple of years ago. My brother-in-law was kind enough to call my husband when we got home, not before, for which my husband has always been grateful.

I use AT&T and always get their plan that gives some data, unlimited texting and charges for calls. When I am traveling alone, I usually text someone every day, just info about something I did, or them texting asking how things are going. I like having this daily contact when I am traveling alone. When I am traveling with someone, I still keep in touch several times with texting, but may be only every few days. My work doesn’t contact me while I’m gone, and I don’t check in on business. That’s one of the benefits of being on a trip. If I’m off and at home, I’m always checking my work email. As far as emergencies go, I would want someone to let me know about some things that would require my action, like the house burning down example. I think I just trust my contacts to know what I should be contacted about and what I shouldn’t be contacted about. I don’t think they would contact me to tell me bad news that I couldn’t do anything about. I think I would want them to contact me about an unexpected death of a close family member.

Douglas, I don't think this sounds self-centred at all. I think it is a very legitimate question in these days where we are expected to be constantly available on our phones.

We have found a way to have a different phone number for very cheap. I have an unlocked phone and use a global SIM card. I keep all my contacts in my phone, but they don't know my number unless I give it to them.

We have received bad news on a trip ( kids calling to say dog very sick, had to be put down before we would make it home) and it certainly impacted our trip. In this case I needed to know, but I have also found that people will let you know things that could have waited until you are back.
To me it is two things, one I want my vacation to be restorative, and I want to immerse myself in the experience I am having.
Having all the mundane details of life still being texted to me is not what I have in mind.
We do use social media a little, so everyone knows we are still kicking, and our 20 something kids will do the same for us. I've asked that they post something at least every 3 days, so we don't worry.