Like most Teardrop trailer owners in Canada and the northern U.S., at this point in the year I am keenly awaiting the weather moving enough into spring that I can hit the road for that first trip of the season. It will probably be a short one just to get back into the flow then followed by a longer journey further away.

My favourite longer-farther Teardrop trailer trip of last year was a two-weeker up along the east and north coast of Lake Superior and then eastward into northern Ontario. The scenery, of course, was awesome. But a surprise bonus, once I left Highway 17 and turned east at Wawa (after the obligatory stop at the now-renewed Wawa goose), was discovering that cell coverage disappears except when close to the small towns where there are towers.

In between, there are stretches of several hundred kilometres, and several hours, with zero coverage. And if you stop to camp at an off-the-grid spot like spot like Wakami Lake Prov Park, where I stayed for 3 days of that trip, you are beyond the range of any cell towers—meaning potentially days without connection to “the outer world”.

So, here’s a question: Is the thought of this scenario making you grin, or giving you anxiety? It will depend on your perspective of course. Frankly, I had to shift my own perspective a bit, but once I did it was such a glorious release.

It’s a very different feeling from turning off your phone, or putting it on airplane mode (though that’s a useful strategy too sometimes), to know that there simply is no connection, nor any chance of one. And to click in with what should have been an obvious notion: the “outer world” is that place where I happened to be, not what was on the other end of my phone. Good heavens, this is what everyday life used to be!

Consider what kind of relationship you want to have with your phone while you are away Teardropping.

Once I found my “disconnected” groove on the road trip, I began looking forward to seeing the phone notify No Service, and felt a ping of disappointment when it would unexpectedly pick-up a signal and my phone would come to life. To make the following analogy is, I realize, to over-dramatize but the peace and nothingness reminded me of the moon mission in 1969 and subsequent years. The lunar orbiter (aka the Command Module, what remained aloft while the lander was on the moon’s surface) would on each 2 hour orbit enter about 45 minutes of complete radio silence as it was on the dark side of the moon. Uncontactable.

Okay, well I did say that was overdramatic but the point is this. I quickly came to embrace the lack of electronic tethering that we have become accustomed to in our daily lives. It felt such a light breath of fresh air. And it felt like being even further away than you already were.

And I can’t wait to get back to that disconnection while out in my Teardrop camper because it cultivates a feeling of presence that—even with mindful effort—is challenging to duplicate in everyday on-the-grid life.

Hints & Hacks

Delightful as it was to be disconnected from SMS messages, email, and the internet generally, there were a couple logistical things to smooth out–both easy fixes:

• I like using a mapping app rather than printed road atlas to find my way from here to there. It’s also useful for discovering back roads and worthwhile points of interest along the way. Downloading offline maps (look for it in mapping app settings) is an easy way to keep using that guidance even when there is no data service.
• My preferred weather app (WeatherCAN from Environment Canada) only displays a forecast when it has a connection; if there is no service it is blank rather than remembering the most recent data. I am hoping they will fix/enhance that one day but in the meantime when I know I’ll be staying in a no-coverage zone I take a screen shot of the forecast before leaving the coverage area. Yep, of course, the forecast can change but at least I have a general trend to refer to.