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

[cakeorwine]

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'?

I was back packing when Diana died, found out from a local who couldn't believe we didn't know a week or so after the event.

I used to live in West Africa pre internet and was mostly ignorant of world news.

I had been on an ultra early shift at work in London on 9/11, came home around midday, went to bed, got up late afternoon, pootled around my flat but didn't watch telly; didn't have internet then, no smartphones obvs. Didn't find out about it until around 9pm when a boyfriend rang to see if I was ok.

It's a different world now.

The only one I really remember, because it was very close to home is the Bradford City fire. I was working in France at the time, no phone, no email and that Saturday I was camping with friends in the countryside.

A French couple mentioned that they had heard on the radio that there had been a big fire at a British football ground, and for some reason I decided to phone my DP, now DH. When he picked up the phone I could hear police sirens in the background - he lived less than half a mile from Valley Parade, and seen ambulances racing to the ground.

I rang my parents who were really anxious to contact me as my uncle had been taken to hospital from the ground with burns to his head and hands.

It really was a different era, nearly 40 years ago.

In the early 90s I lived on an island with no TV and only the BBC World Service radio. Didn't have a clue about anything going on in the world (was a child though).

I was at Glastonbury and all weekend we kept hearing rumours about Michael Jackson dying but no one really knew for sure till we got home.

I was travelling through Asia when the run on Northern Rock happened.

A couple of years later I was in Asia again. No big stories but it could be a while before getting chance to get online and catch up with BBC news.

I was back from holiday a few days before Diana died, but missed out on the Dodi headlines for much of the preceding weeks while I was away.

We were in spain for a week’s holiday when 9/11 happened, we had no idea

Coming home a few days later there were huge queues to get past security in the airport and no one was explaining why. The taxi driver eventually told us

@EinsteinaGogo

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 😳😳🧐

See, i find that quite attractive. I've got a fantasy where I take off alone to an island off the top of Scotland with nothing but a pile of books for a week or two. I'd love to take a really simple Nokia so that I could check in with family each day, but no social media or anything else.