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Original poster

Have you ever been in a place where you have been unable to follow historic world events - such as on a cruise or in a remote location

33 replies

cakeorwine · 13/03/2022 17:47

DF is currently on a cruise at the moment. Been away for 3 weeks. Obvious he will have caught the news on the places he's been to - and I guess there is a ship news update service? But at the moment, he's mid Atlantic.

I know he would be following events closely if he was in the UK. But he can't.

I don't know how that would make me feel. I did spend a month away from world events when travelling in Nepal but nothing that was too significant happened.

Have you ever been somewhere where you haven't been able to follow world events at all and someone had to tell you 'big news' when you returned? Or you realised when you got back that something big had happened and you just hadn't realised because you were out of the 'news loop'?

OP posts:
Vanillaradio · 13/03/2022 18:29

On the cruises I have been on following the news was no issue. There was bbc news channel in the cabins, a news sheet you could pick up every day on the ship and you could pay for wi fi and look on your smart phone and obviously check your phone when in port.
To answer your original question- yes I have but not for a long time. I did voluntary work in Europe in the 90s where it was usually sleeping in a fairly remote location with no tv and not near the shops and mobile phones weren't a thing. If we got hold of a newspaper because someone went into town everybody was crowded round it trying to apply their varying knowledge of the language of the country we were in. The only major thing I can remember missing was the bombing at the Olympics in 1996 though.

Ellmau · 13/03/2022 18:39

Not all that remote, but I was in Italy when the 7/7 bombings took place, and there was no BBC or English language TV. I did GCSE Italian so I was translating bits from the Italian newspapers for family and other British tourists ;)

Ellmau · 13/03/2022 18:39

(No BBC in our hotel, not in all of Italy).

Original poster
cakeorwine · 13/03/2022 18:41

I have just remembered

I was on holiday in Turkey in a not very tourist place. I remember looking at the TV and seeing tanks in Red Square in 1991. That didn't look good. Had no idea what was happening as it was in Turkish.

OP posts:
Watapalava · 13/03/2022 18:41

Yes I was backpacking when Sarah Payne was murdered

I had no idea of the case when I returned couple months later

DonttouchthatLarry · 13/03/2022 18:46

Yes - also in Nepal, although nothing newsworthy happened while we were away.

We were in Menorca pre smartphones - never put the tv on so were shocked to see all the front pages of the newspapers the day after 9/11.

burnoutbabe · 13/03/2022 18:46

On a cruise they print out a news summary each day and you can get bbc world news etc.

I
Imagine if it was 9/11 or Diana's death they would have done a formal captains announcement.

wildcamping · 13/03/2022 18:48

Washed up in Edinburgh after some time in the hills - all the shops were shut - most odd -turned out princess Diana has died and it was her funeral

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 13/03/2022 18:52

During the 7/7 bombings I was on a Caribbean island in a hurricane (voluntary work rather than luxury holiday)... we had access to Spanish CNN, so it was rather vague on details. I managed to get through to my brother on a payphone who could confirm my parents and him were safe... and worried about me in reverse!

TulipsTwoLips · 13/03/2022 18:55

Yes, I was trekking in the Andes for a month. Came into Lima at the end of it and the 7/7 bombings had happened in London. My brother was working in the City at the time so it was a scary wait for news.

SwedishEdith · 13/03/2022 18:57

Missed America's invasion of Grenada as a student as, well, other stuff going on.

Missed most of the ins and outs of the Madeleine McCann story because had a bereavement closer to home.

Missed loads of other celeb deaths as happened when on holiday. Different now with phones and notifications.

Phineyj · 13/03/2022 18:57

Yes, we were in Ireland on a boating holiday in 2001 and learnt of the attack on the twin towers through seeing photos on the front of all the papers spread out on the counter of a tiny newsagents. It was surreal. We had to eat the emergency tinned food we had with us as a national day of mourning was declared the next day so we couldn't buy food.

And similarly, learnt of the financial crisis through the newspaper delivery while on a corporate week away in 2008 in a rural location with dodgy Internet and no phone reception.

Back in the 1990s, when the UK crashed out of the ERM (the pre Euro currency system), I was a student on a working holiday in the states. The currency collapse made a few lines in an inside page deep within the Rocky Mountain News a week or so later...my Dad was so horrified by this he started posting me a British newspaper once a week.

Aconitum · 13/03/2022 18:59

My parents were on a weeks walking holiday staying at fairly remote hotel somewhere in the UK when Princess Diana died. They obviously knew it had happened but didn't watch the TV or read the papers and couldn't believe the ridiculous hysteria being whipped up by the media when they got home.

MolkosTeenageAngst · 13/03/2022 18:59

Yes, around 10 years ago I spent around 6 months volunteering in rural India no phone and with limited internet access. I was able to get online every week or two but the internet was very slow, I generally only had time to check my emails from friends and family. There was a language barrier too with only a few of the people I was working alongside able to speak basic English so I probably wouldn’t have known if anything big had been happening in the news for some time, probably until it felt newsworthy enough for somebody to email me about it.

That said I don’t think anything much happened whilst I was there. I also imagine that nowadays most people travelling overseas have smart phones with Wi-Fi or 3G data. Certainly when I travelled to several Asian countries again five years ago you could buy SIM cards with data packages on arrival at the airport and Wi-Fi was available in many hotels and cafes etc.

MyrtlethePurpleTurtle · 13/03/2022 19:00

My brother was hiking for x2 weeks remotely when covid happened

SwedishEdith · 13/03/2022 19:00

Ah, yeah, Black Wednesday - on holiday in France, oblivious, and decided to exchange some currency that day at the bank for French francs and wondered why the exchange rate was so shit.

MyrtlethePurpleTurtle · 13/03/2022 19:02

I have been travelling tbe last three months. Ukraine / Russia isn’t subject to 24/7 news coverage where I’ve been and is just an item of news on tbat country’s news channels

SickAndTiredAgain · 13/03/2022 19:04

It wasn’t for that long but a friend of mine went travelling for a month at the start of Feb 2020. She had internet access but just on her phone so wasn’t massively paying attention to the news, and the trip ended with climbing Kilimanjaro, which I think meant about a week of no/very limited internet.
When she got back to her hotel, it was when Italy had closed off that whole region due to covid cases. She couldn’t believe it when I told her Italy was basically shut, as when she’d last seen the news properly it had been a virus in China with a few people paying attention.

Sirzy · 13/03/2022 19:05

When I have been on cruises they have always had a daily “newspaper” with up to date news. They also have tv in the cabins. No issue keeping up to date

Seafog · 13/03/2022 19:06

We left (prebooked) for an off grid camping trip the morning after 9/11.
At that point there was still no idea if it was a war starting, or what.
We had not contact with the outside world for 10 days.
As we emerged from the forest, we met a couple who asked us what our thought were about the CIA staging an attack on the US?!
We were 'wtf?!' until we made it home to be able to hear the news and find out that the couple were just a few conspiracy nut jobs.

Rockbird · 13/03/2022 19:08

I've done transatlantic crossings a few times, news has never been an issue. Plenty of tvs and computers around, Wi-Fi (at a cost) for phones etc and daily newsletters. It's not off grid at all.

JimmyDurham · 13/03/2022 19:10

Two weeks walking in the Norwegian mountains. Knew nothing of world events until we got to a tiny place called Lom in the middle of nowhere.

EinsteinaGogo · 13/03/2022 19:10

It's such a scary thought, to be off grid.

It was one of the (many) things that made me horrified at the thought of going into something like the Big Brother house, back in the day.

The thought of being cut off without knowledge of the outside world 😳😳🧐

Fernsinthegarden · 13/03/2022 19:12

Not me but I remember reading about the German (?) big brother series that was being filmed and they initially made the decision not to tell any of the contestants about what was going on and when they finally did everything was on lockdown. That was strange imagining how weird and awful that would have felt.

Fernsinthegarden · 13/03/2022 19:13

I’ve missed out the bit where this was at the beginning of Covid 🤦‍♀️