A buddy of mine has a retreat company called Pursuit Of Presence. Basically he does an annual trip with a bunch of people where you arrive to an airport, not knowing where you go from there, and he takes away your phone and tech for the entire trip. He calls them “blackout trips,” and they are crazy fun! This was my 2nd one and it was to Tromso Norway. It took a handful of flights to get there and when I arrived it was dark. In fact, it was dark from the time I landed until a week later, with only a slight, non-sun twilight each day for a few hours. I was weird I’ve got to say.
My friend Mya met me at the airport and we hopped in an Uber. It was so crazy! The city had snow and traffic problems so they decided to run a bunch of major roads underground! We’re not talking normal tunnels either we’re talking full multi-lane roads with lights, roundabouts, parking, underground! It was a trip, but also SUPER efficient.
Got to the hotel and as planned, Rob took away our phones. Bye bye normal life, it was time to connect w people in reality for a week. Much needed for me btw. From there we loaded in vans and took off. All of the roads were covered in snow, I’m not sure I even saw asphalt once we left Tromso. We had to take 3 different fairies to get where we were going, not sure where that was btw.lol The fairies were cool. Little convenience store cafe type things.
We arrived to a little ski lodge and settled in to our bunks. Without going into all the details of the trip because a lot is supposed to stay secret, the basic idea is you’re totally WITH the people in the group. And after a few days the work is deeper than you could do otherwise. If you’ve ever been off the grid camping or traveling, you know the feeling. Its surprisingly natural feeling and human. I think the tech, over-connected world we’ve created is the unnatural thing.
Anyway, we spend the next bunch of days getting out when the sky had some light. Even a little lightness each day was better than nothing. Here’s a picture of the twilight. It was really cool having that magic lighting for a few hours each day.
We snow shooed, dog sledded, journaled, chatted, laughed and drank. And to be honest connected deeper than I do with most groups. There’s no choice, nowhere to go, nothing else to do. There’s also a connection you regain with yourself when there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. I find it priceless. You think more at times, relax more at times, I found myself anxious at times because I felt like I should be doing something. So I would nap, or chat, or walk. I feel so much more normal in this setting than in normal life with a phone.
When we first got there the Northern Lights were out and I remember thinking “I thought the rocky mountains would be a little rockier than this” lol They are like light tinted clouds to the naked eye. They are cool, and they move fast, and you’ve never seen anything like them. BUT the ones we saw are not deeply colored. What’s funny is the pics I took on the last night show a vibrant green but to my eyes they were a light green. Odd, but worth mentioning. I was more impressed by how fast they moved. They would rip and change in the whole sky in seconds. They would drop and stretch and grow and vanish right before your eyes! It was SO AWESOME!
On my first Blackout Trip I had some huge epiphanies about tech, but on this one I was more used to it and it wasn’t as shocking. The real value for me lied in remembering how valuable it is to disconnect and be with yourself and good friends a couple times a year. To truly let go and remember who you are when the digital life is gone. More than just being with friends, its being with them phone and distraction free for multiple days. It’s powerful!