Phoneless in the city
An unplanned self-experiment in Rio de Janeiro
The first thing everybody warns you about when travelling to Brazil are phone robberies. Charlie’s phone didn’t get stolen. She merely took some precautions that led to an interesting self-experiment.
Prevention techniques
The biggest problem with your phone getting stolen isn’t the monetary value, it’s the access you no longer have to email and bank accounts, 2-factor-authentication-apps and so on. It’s a situation you really don’t want to be in, especially when travelling.
For that reason, Charlie got a second phone. Her main phone would stay in a safe place; the secondary phone would be coming with her during the day. Additionally, Charlie had a strap to hang it around her neck and a bum bag to store it close to her body. (If you’re in crowded places, you should also hide that bum bag inside your clothing.)
Setting up your secondary phone
The most important apps you want on your secondary phone are Google Maps and Uber. That will enable you to get around. You should also ensure that this phone is eSim-suitable and of course get an eSim and some data for it. After all, you won’t be able to get an Uber without connection.
The next app that Charlie installed was WhatsApp for easy communications and Instagram. Since she would take all her photos on this phone, it was easiest to have Instagram on the same phone to upload them directly. With that, you also want to make sure that you backup your photos regularly. WhatsApp has a feature where you can log into the same account on a different phone. You won’t be able to access location sharing or receiving any security codes, everything else works as normal though.
In order for apps to work, you will need an account for the app store. Charlie created a new Google account for that reason so that she also had an email address that she could access while out and about (e.g. you can send any tickets you bought to that email address) and it wouldn’t cause any trouble if somebody else got access to it.
Things to remember
Before you leave the house, you should think about the access you might need for that particular day. If you have bought any tickets online that have been sent to your main email address, make sure you forward those to the email inbox you have access to on your secondary phone. If you are going to work, make sure you log in to everything that requires 2FA on your laptop through your main phone before going to the coworking space or office.
The self-experiment: Being phoneless
As Charlie was walking through Rio de Janeiro, she tried to get her phone out as little as possible. She tried to remember the route and if she had to check Google Maps, she would step into a drugstore to get the phone out in a safe place.
Training the memory
It used to be a normal thing to plan your route in advance with a paper map. Nowadays, everybody is so used to the constant availability of GPS and online maps, that it might seem difficult at first to not have the phone in your hand while navigating through the streets. It ended up being surprisingly easy though. Charlie memorized shops and restaurants along the way and used mnemonics to remember street names. On her first day to the language school, she stepped inside a store a few times to check where to turn next on the 40-minute walk. By the second day, she only needed it once to verify her route. On the third day, she didn’t have to check at all anymore. She was impressed by her own ability to remember the route. It wasn’t so hard after all!
Applying logic
On Charlie’s first day in the language school, she was picked up by the surf instructor at the school and they walked together to the beach. The next few days, she would have to find the way on her own. He was trying to walk mostly in the shade and took a route that seemed like a labyrinth. Charlie didn’t apply her techniques as they were chatting on the way. At that point, she also thought that she would have her phone the next day.
However, as they reached the beach, she noticed that they didn’t have a safe place to store valuables. They would simply ask somebody on the beach to watch their things. Charlie wasn’t comfortable with that and decided to leave her phone at the school the next day and go to the beach phoneless.
She wouldn’t remember the way she went the previous day with the surf instructor. A look on the map showed a much easier route. She would have to walk in the sun for a bit though. No big deal, she simply brought a hat! From the language school, she only had to take the road straight down towards Ipanema beach and then along the promenade to Arpoador. The only thing she had to remember was the restaurant at the corner to be able to find the way back.
Wait time
The estimate was that it would take about 20 minutes to Arpoador, so Charlie knew approximately what time it was when she arrived. Without her phone, she didn’t have a watch.
She sat in the shade under a palm tree, watched the waves and waited for the surf instructor. A good moment for a bit of mindfulness and a whole new experience without the endless scrolling through social media.
For the next surfing lessons, Charlie got a book from the library at the language school so she could spend the time on the beach reading a book. She even went there a bit earlier to have more time before the surf instructor arrived.
Even on occasions where she had her phone with her, the scrolling was limited because she only had a few apps on that secondary phone and there wasn’t much to scroll.
Being phoneless in Rio was a liberating experience for Charlie and it allowed her some time to think and reflect and mostly observe her surroundings. She thinks she might do this again!
Images have been created with AI.
