Things to Do on Holiday That Don't Include Your Phone

Be honest, when was the last time you picked up your phone without actually meaning to?

You sit down to take in the view, and thirty seconds later you’re three photos deep into a stranger’s kitchen renovation. You don’t even remember unlocking the screen. It just… happened.

It’s annoying at the best of times. On holiday, it’s something else entirely. That’s the thing about phones and social media, they’re built to pull you back in. A quick check becomes ten minutes. Ten minutes becomes an hour you can’t account for. There’s always one more thing to see, and never quite enough to feel satisfied.

So this year, we’ve partnered with kip. It’s a small device tucked into each of our cabins that lets you switch off the apps that do the most pulling – no willpower required, no settings to dig through. Just a tap, and the time on holiday gets to be the main thing again.

So, what do you do instead?

Actually finish the view. Make a coffee, sit somewhere with a good view, and stay there longer than it takes to get the “good” shot. Watch how the light shifts over ten, twenty minutes. Notice the bit you’d have scrolled past if you were only looking through a screen.

Cook something that takes a while. Fire up the hob, or cook outside if you wish (most of our cabins have outdoor fire pits with grills), and pick something you wouldn’t usually have time for. Nothing that needs a timer set to the second. No recipe videos playing in the background, no shortcuts. Just you, a pan, and the smell of something good building slowly.

Go for a walk, further than usual. Let it run long, with no route planned. Or if you’d rather have a plan, we send out recommendations when you book. Follow the tracks around the cabin and see where they actually lead. Dogs don’t care about the destination, and for an hour, neither do you. Take your time, take plenty of rests, and just enjoy it.

Read something with actual pages. Bring a book you’ve been meaning to start and let yourself get properly into it. No notifications interrupting the second chapter, no urge to check what other people thought of it first. There’s a strange luxury in not knowing how many people have already reviewed it.

Talk. Properly. No phone on the table, no half-listening while you scroll. Let the conversation run wherever it wants to – the kind of talk that only really happens when neither of you has anywhere else to be.

Try the outdoor bath after dark. Water warm, sky clear, nothing to check and nowhere else to be. This is the moment kip earns its keep – apps switched off, phone somewhere you can’t see it, just you and however many stars you can count before you lose track.

The point isn’t to disconnect completely

None of this is about swearing off your phone for good, or coming home and deleting every app in a fit of main-character energy. It’s about giving yourself a proper stretch of time where the view, the walk, the bath under the stars, actually get your full attention, not the leftover bit of it.

That’s easier when the choice is already made for you. Tap in, switch off, and the rest of the list stops competing with a notification.

Come and try it for yourself – currently across North Wales, Cheshire, and Staffordshire, with new off-grid locations opening across the UK soon.