Hi… Hi there… Hey… Hello… HELLO! Yes you. The one welded to your phone. How about a digital detox?  Off-grid holidays are increasingly hard to come by if you’re seeking some with no phone reception, no WiFi and/or no 4G. An off-grid holiday might purely be in a location away from selfie temptation, in accommodation that isn’t made of bricks and mortar, or so active there’s really no time nor sense to reach for your usual hand extension. 

Let’s go in search of a digital detox and see how easy it’ll be to get off-grid from your everyday habits…

Stay in a shepherd’s hut

Once the newbie in the quirky holiday homes category, shepherd’s hut are one a penny these days but that doesn’t make them boring. They’re also perfect for getting off-grid on holiday. Some are hooked up to the mains and barely different to staying in a proper house, but there are equally plenty out there plonked in a field with an amenities block a short wander away.

It would be unusual to find a shepherd’s hut anywhere other than a rural oasis. This makes them perfect for you to keep your head up and your eyes forward while soaking up lush surroundings, stunning vistas and a whole manner of exciting things to see and do wherever you find yourself.

Book a safari tent

Pack your camo gear and the Deet, we’re off to the desert. Well, not quite. Safari tents make for great off-grid holidays and are typically found in fields and on glamping sites. There will always be some running water available nearby, if not inside. You’ll most certainly want to snap a selfie to record this out-of-your-comfort-zone moment for posterity, but after that enjoy the rugged nature of your break and relax.

Depending on where you stay in the UK, you could even find yourself enjoying a foraging course, cooking locally sourced sausages on your camp fire and toasting marshmallows over the dying embers. See – magical moments await!

Book a retro rental

Depending on your own definition of retro, this could mean a home bedecked in throwback 60s furniture. It might also mean a home preserved in pre-war simplicity. Or go a step further and stay in a holiday home without modern amenities. Imagine bricks and mortar without running water, central heating, nor electricity.

We challenge you to bring in fire wood, get the hearth a-blaze and the kettle boiling while someone else ventures to the river to fish for supper. Whatever kind of retro holiday home you’re looking for, allow it to take you on an off-grid holiday for a day or two.

Rent a yurt

Perhaps the icon of the glamping revolution and off-grid holidays, UK yurts have been popular for a decade or more after arriving here from lands afar. A common site in the VIP areas of festivals and posh glamping sites the country over, they typically come with a proper bed to sleep in too.

Yurts are well tested against the elements and you’ll be warm and dry inside whatever the great British weather is doing out there. With the exception of an outside bathroom, you’ll feel perfectly at home while utterly away from it all. Meanwhile your inclination to reach for the phone has turned positively negative.

Book a farmstay

This might not sound like an obviously off-grid holiday, but if you pick right, you’ll not only find yourselves in the middle of nowhere, you might not even have any reception. Farmstays make for fabulous rural family holidays. Stay on a working farm and you and the kids might also be able to get involved with feeding time and egg collection (as well as consumption).

The best places to get off-grid on a digital detox holiday involving a farmstay are probably Wales and Cumbria.

Stay in a bothy

Get back to basics with a digital detox holiday in a bothy. Designed to put four walls and a roof around estate workers in need of shelter, you’ll find them on sprawling Scottish estates and in the Welsh mountains.

Today, the opportunity to stay in a bothy for off-grid holidays is most likely to involve one that’s had a bit of a refurb. While still basic to look at, and in the amenities available, you’ll probably find a comfortable bed and the basics you need to brew a cuppa and cook a light supper. Sounds like the perfect excuse to get out and see the local area!

Hire a treehouse

Imagine yourselves up high above the ground with the odd branch providing structure or a fascinating feature of your unusual holiday home. Treehouses are often cabins perched amongst the trunks of a few trees on a steep hillside, or built around the branches of a sturdy species.

You might be able to walk between your treetop cabins via a bridge or reach the heights of your cool holiday home from a makeshift spiral staircase around a neighbouring tree. Either way, we hope you have a head for heights!

Book your off-grid holidays

It’s typically quirky holiday accommodation that leads up on digital detox escapes and one of our members is particularly good at collecting these off-grid places to stay.

Assuming you’re still with us… will you dare to go gadget-free?