Sometimes you just need to unplug. So, I piled my best friends into the car and we headed an hour and 40 minutes north of our busy lives in San Francisco to Petaluma . We were going camping, and our iPhone chargers were packed.
Before you roll your eyes at Millennials — you know, the phone-wielding culprits of adventure's demise — let me tell you why it just might be OK to ask for the park's Wi-Fi password.
I am all for phones-off time, and my family and friends are huge advocates of meal-time phone piles. But sharing a moment on social media has its place. On our camping trip, we didn't buy a souvenir from the gift shop. We didn't carry high-quality cameras with the intention of printing and saving our photographs. Our social media posts were our keepsakes from an unforgettable camping trip.
A majority of campers — 88% — bring their mobile phones with them when camping, according to the 2016 North American Camping Report. It’s a trend the report attributes to the steady rise in Millennial campers.
But it’s not just Millennials. Wi-Fi is the most sought-after amenity at all the nearly 500 locations of Kampgrounds of America across the U.S. and Canada for all age groups for all kinds of reasons: looking for local outings, managing trips, social media, checking emails. Carrying a phone can also be a safety tool in case of an emergency.
Luckily, we had no safety issues. For my camping group? We connected to Wi-Fi for Instagram and Snapchat. We weren't on our phones to distance ourselves from what was happening around us, but to share what we are seeing with people we love. All four of us have close family on the East Coast. Easily sharing a photo of a beautiful moment lets us loop them in to special experiences that, because of technology, they can enjoy with us instantly.
"Millennials are photographers — they are using social media to participate in the moment," says Jen Young, cofounder of Outdoorsy, an RV rental website. "Younger people have high debt and place less of an emphasis on items — instead they want experiences. Millennials like camping because it capitalizes on this trend of being unplugged, recreation focused."
To Millennials, Young says, the definition of "unplugged" is different. "There is a difference in the way different age groups use technology."
Phones in hand, Snapchat open, we were unplugged — in our own way. For me, plugged-in carries a sense of obligation. Showing my mom a photo of how bad I am at roasting marshmallows doesn't equate to constantly refreshing emails, awaiting information to complete a work assignment.
“Millennials aren’t just sitting on the campground on their phone,” says Toby O’Rourke, chief franchise operations officer for Kampgrounds of America, who notes the campgrounds promote the hashtag #KOAcamping. So far, it has been used more than 6,000 times on Instagram. Scrolling through, those photos capture precious moments of family time, laughter and smiles.
Now, weeks later, when I look back at my posts, I am tickled again with the itch to go somewhere new. Looking through the old texts of us scrambling to figure out what to pack makes me laugh. My phone helps that experience live on. But that’s because we didn’t make our phones the experience — we just brought them along to capture as many free souvenirs as we wanted.
Technology isn't keeping me inside or glued to a screen. According to that 2016 camping report, Millennials were the most likely by far to say they planned to camp more this year. If your experience with nature is improved by the ability to share it with your best friends on Instagram, is that so wrong? It might even inspire someone to toss a tent in the trunk and head somewhere new for a mini-adventure.
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