Do you check email while on vacation?
 

Curious to see if people check their email while on vacation, or try to get away from it all. <BR><BR>

I don't check it at all. If I do, I will feel that I need to take the time to respond, and I really don't have time for that when on vacation.<BR><BR>I just want to be away from the email and deal with it when I get back.

No way!!!!!! I'm on VACATION...I'll deal with the email when I return home. I've got better things to do; that's why I am on vacation.<BR><BR>Curious

While I don't go through my 'regular' emails, and also ask that people refrain from sending forwards, etc. while I am gone, I do use email as a way of keeping in touch with my kids while I am gone. It proved very handy while we were in New Zealand and Australia for a month.

<BR>Yes, I have to check and be sure the house is still standing, the dog is ok and the kids are happy.<BR>Then I can have fun.

I have no email to check, but my husband checks his voice mail each morning on vacation....and responds!

I don't check it for work but I do have a Yahoo account set up that I use to send email to family and friends . . . I try to send every other day and then this serves as a good base for typing up my trip notes when I return home.<BR><BR>BTW, our family has a rule . . . no bad news on a trip, unless there's something we can do about it. If the house burns down or someone dies, no one tells until we return. There's nothing we can do and no reason to spoil someone's trip.<BR><BR>

Sandy, I agree with you. We basically have the same rule re/ bad news.<BR>If you are at sea for two days and someone notifies you that so-so is sick, just what are you going to do except worry?<BR>But there are people who would run a mile barefoot through broken glass to deliver bad news.<BR><BR>I go on vacation to get the heck away from cell phones, computers, problems, etc. After all, doesn't the word vacation come from &quot; to vacate--go away, break away, get away, etc&quot;???

hi Sandy..good advice!<BR>I do recall when I was very young ..about 10 or 11.. we were on vacation and my older sister had to call us....as my Dads mother had died.<BR>Its good she did..we were In Atlanta and gramma lived in New Jersey..instead of flying back home and then on to NJ..we flew straight there ( the weird thing is, if my memory serves, we were on the last day of the vacation)...<BR>I guess every circumstance is different.

My father died in his sleep (best way to go) when I was on my very first trip ever . . . to Europe for 3 weeks. He died on my first day gone, nothing I could do, would have ruined the trip for me and my friend.<BR><BR>My mother was upset at first that no one would tell me but after the first shock of it all, she realized there was nothing I (or anyone) could do to make things better. <BR><BR>The funeral home held everything until I returned and we had a nice service.<BR><BR>May sound cold hearted but nothing I or anyone could do so why tell. <BR><BR>My friend's children tell her everything and all she does is grieve and worry . . . what is accomplished in that? It spoils her trip and by the time she gets home, she finds out that everything is fine or not as bad as they led her to believe.<BR><BR>You're right . . . some people delight in delivering bad news.

yep Sandy.. everyone is different.<BR>I am going on a cruise in May ( first one in 10 years!). I have no hubby or significant other, and everyone else in my family is in pretty good shape so hopefully I will have smooth sailing ( in all definitions!)..and no, I wont be checking my email while on board LOL...

Though I never check my email when I'm away, I did get a kick out of sending mail titled, &quot;From Russia with Love&quot; when I was there last spring.

I can't imagine not checking from time to time when you are away for an extended time. We have a large, extended family, and I need to know that there is no crisis. Maybe there isn't anything you can 'do' when something happens far away but still, I need to know. (my sister died while we were away a few years ago, and we adjusted our flight home, skipped a portion of the trip, to be with her grieving husband and children). Anyone who wouldn't would be pretty insensitive, to say the least.

Can't imagine how some folks managed to get by back in the &quot;olden days&quot; when there were no emails and no cell phones! Must have been mighty difficult! <BR><BR>On another note, I would think that bad news delivered by email would be considered cold and insensitive. A good old fashioned phone call would be more in order.

one thanksgiving holiday, i was in london, hubby was in amsterdam, and two teenage children were at home (in texas...). my motel was just blocks away from victoria station, and across the street from v.s. was a cybercafe. each morning before hitting victoria station to go wherever i was going to sightsee that day, and each evening when i'd come back to the motel, i'd stop in and 'check in' with both kids and hubby to see what they were up to and let them know i was still around. what a blast to be on my own in london for days and days, but still keep in touch...

I've tallied the results of Fodorites responding so far, and it's too close to call. Five say &quot;yes,&quot; and six say &quot;no.&quot; Anyone want to break the near tie?

Add me to the group that says &quot;yes&quot;, but I sure don't know how that will break the tie.<BR><BR>Since my trips are often up to 5 months long, it is essential that I check email. That's how I keep in touch with my friend who handles all my mail and stuff at home.

I am checking my email now and I am on vacation in Miami. After Miami we are head to the Caribbean. Yeah!<BR><BR>I also log on to check the interior and exterior of my house via the internet. We have small cameras set up in strategic locations so we can peek in. I just saw the kitty on the kitchen counter island - a big no no when we are home!<BR><BR>Anyway, with the snow we had in NJ over the last couple of days, it made sense to check on the house.<BR><BR>

I don't even like to check my e-mail when I'm AT work.<BR><BR>But I did have to try and track down an i'net cafe to get the NFL playoff scoop while on vacation since the Kauaian newpapers are a bit lacking in their coverages.<BR>USAToday could be renamed &quot;USASomeday&quot; when you're waiting for the football scores on Monday. ;^)<BR>Kal

I spent four years in England in the early sixties. And never spoke by phone to home during that time. Mom did come over when I got married an English girl (our 40th anniversary is in September.)<BR><BR>We kept in touch by mail. It was a different time....

I was stuck in China on 9/11 and emails to and from friends and family helped keep me sane. Phone calls are very expensive so you don't use the phone much. Emails were free (except for internet use fee).<BR><BR>My daughter was in London for a month and she enjoyed hearing from home and I enjoyed hearing about what all she was doing.<BR><BR>I only read the personal stuff--delete or wait on all the rest.<BR><BR>

If I am checking my e-mails while on vacation, then I'm really not on vacation!

So, do you not make any phone calls either?

I check it if I am at a place that is modem friendly. We are travelling right now. I like to check the home newspaper, my credit card balance and bankstatements, and naturally what's going on with the Fodorites!<BR><BR>I bring down my email now and then so I can delete the massive amounts of spam so if I get something worthwhile there will be room for it in my mailbox.<BR><BR>Depending on the amount of time we are gone I like to BS with friends at home once in a while.

That's a definite no-no. No emails nor calls from my work. It's vacation and I am very protective of it.We keep in touch only with our grown children by telephone every few days. They know where they can reach us...

If I did that I'm not sure I could call it a vacation.

I'll go further with this. When we're on vacation...<BR><BR>No phone calls in or out. <BR><BR>No TV.<BR><BR>No e-mail.<BR><BR>No newspapers.<BR>

When we take month long roadtrips in the US and Canada (2000, 2002 and one coming up next month!)we check email maybe once every other week at a public library primarily to prevent the account from becoming full. Email is good because it lets people know where you are as oppossed to trying to call someone and they're not at home (no answering machine). Also, good because people can contact us while we're on the road since we do not have a cell phone. <BR>Since we do camping roadtrips out of our car, we usually only see tv once or twice in a month. Crazy b/c at home I'm a reality tv junkie but on the road I don't miss tv at all!

My work e-mail will not get touched. With a daily average of over 350 e-mails, these can pile up. Too bad.<BR><BR>However, my personal e-mails do get looked at. I use mail2web.com to check it, clean out the spam and send mail to those I care about. I usually get no more than 50 e-mails a day to that mailbox, and maybe 40 of them are junk, so it can be done in a few minutes. If I don't bring my laptop, I just use a pay Internet station.

I like reading my email while on vacation.

Heck no.

Nope.

I have a Hotmail account I use while traveling.<BR><BR>We check in with the family, the cat sitter, etc.<BR><BR>I agree with the delivery of bad news. My family will keep it until we return. We too are of the belief that there is nothing we can do until we get home. That stems from a trip many years ago when a beloved older cat died while we were away. My Mom was devastated and it put a cloud over the rest of the trip. Some might think that strange but pets are very important to some folks.

We occasionally check email on vacation, either on our laptop or an internet cafe if we leave the laptop at home. It is a good tool to keep in touch with our families and business. It was especially nice to communicate with loved ones while we were in France during 911 and they were concerned about us traveling. Didn't have to tie up phone lines.

I have a yahoo account I check on some trips for personal use only. I won't pay to check it though. I do call my Mom lots (about every other day), I like to share my adventures.<BR><BR>I too don't read the newspaper and usually don't watch the news. We were in England Sept 11 and had the rest of our trip ruined by knowing so now I just prefer to remain ignorant until I get home. Big stuff like that I am going to hear about anyway.

I don't necessarily &quot;check&quot; but I like the fact that I easily send a quick message to let people know things are going well and send my greetings. While traveling solo I don't make phone calls but send an email or two. It's fun to know I can keep in touch quickly even from long distances or other countries. AND it's so much cheaper. Hotels can charge quite a bit for even a few minutes. I don't check work or respond to work emails on vacation.

No way. In the olden days, B.E. (before email), we'd call my grown daughter and both sets of parents. Tres expensive, and sometimes a real pain, but we did it more for their sake their ours'. We are usually gone for 5-7 weeks and now rarely call. We were in Paris on 9/11, so we felt obligated to make contact.<BR><BR>An acquaintance's father died unexpectedly the day she and her husband left for Europe for three weeks. Her mother had no way of contacting her and she didn't call home during her trip. Her mother went ahead with the funeral and when she returned home everything had been taken care of. The reason that I referred to her as an acquaintance rather than a friend is that when she told us about his death, the first thing that she said ..'guess what, I got my father's Mercedes'. Takes all kinds. <BR>

P.S. That statement is only an example of why we don't think of her as a friend. I didn't want to sound _that_ petty! <BR>

I absolutely do not check email when on vacation! <BR><BR>Funny story, my husband brought his laptop on a three week trip through Europe with the idea he could check his email and deal with work crises, etc. On the flight over my son, in his sleep, kicked a glass of orange juice off the tray table right into the disk drive and the computer remained unusable for the entire trip! We had packed so carefully so we weren't carrying anything unnecessary, and here we were hauling this useless laptop all over Europe. For the first week or so my husband was jonesing for it, but by the time we got to Italy he was fine. I think the wine there helped too.

yes. i go for long periods of time, and I like to send group e-mails of my adventures