You land at your dream destination, unpack, and sit down to a long-awaited dinner with your partner - only for one of you to start scrolling.
It is the core contradiction of modern travel: we leave home to disconnect, yet bring the devices that keep us hooked. Proximity does not equal connection, and as "phubbing" (phone snubbing) quietly erodes intimacy, more couples are booking holidays specifically to escape constant notifications.
Leaving your device in the hotel safe might just be the most romantic - and restorative - move you make this trip.
According to clinical psychologist and couples practitioner Anele Siswana, the issue is not whether smartphones are inherently good or bad for relationships but what happens when a device begins competing with the person in front of us.
“One of the most important ingredients in a healthy intimate relationship is the experience of feeling seen, heard and psychologically attended to,” Siswana says.
When one partner repeatedly checks notifications or scrolls while the other is speaking, the emotional message can be that something on the device is more deserving of their attention.
“Even when that is not the intention, the emotional impact can be significant,” he says.
It is one of the greatest contradictions of modern travel: we leave home to disconnect but take the devices that keep us connected everywhere we go.
When being together isn’t the same as connecting
The problem is not necessarily unique to holidays.
A 2020 Pew Research Center survey of US adults in relationships found that 51% said their partner was at least sometimes distracted by their mobile phone when they were trying to have a conversation, while 16% said this happened often.
Among partnered adults aged 30 to 49, the figure rose to 62%. Four in 10 also said they were at least sometimes bothered by the amount of time their partner spent on their phone.
The behaviour has become known as phubbing - ignoring or disengaging from someone in favour of a phone.
A 2025 meta-analysis published in "Frontiers in Psychology", examining 52 studies involving almost 20 000 participants, found significant negative associations between partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction, intimacy and responsiveness, alongside an association with increased conflict.
The findings do not prove that phone use causes unhappy relationships. They do, however, suggest that repeated digital distraction can be associated with poorer relationship experiences.
For couples, that makes holidays interesting.
“We often imagine a holiday as ‘quality time’, but proximity does not automatically create connection,” Siswana says.
“You can spend seven days next to someone and still not meaningfully encounter one another.”
Travel offers the opportunity to break that pattern. There is time for a long breakfast, an evening walk, a shared meal, or simply watching a sunset without rushing to the next responsibility.
But those moments require attention.
Siswana describes attention itself as a form of intimacy. Sometimes, he says, what a partner needs is not another grand romantic gesture but your undivided attention when they are telling you about their day.
Couples are looking for a slower pace
Travel professionals are seeing a similar shift. Michelle Liebenberg, of Envoyage South Africa, says couples are increasingly looking for holidays that allow them to step away from the constant demands of digital life.
“A few years ago, nobody asked me for this specifically,” she says. “It was just an unspoken benefit of going away. Now it’s often the first thing they mention, wanting somewhere they can actually put the phone down and be with each other.”
Liebenberg believes the change reflects the pace of modern life: notifications, social media, work messages and the expectation of being contactable throughout the day.
“People aren’t just tired - they’re overstimulated,” she says.
Rather than simply booking a destination, she says, couples are increasingly “booking a pace” – choosing holidays that allow them to slow down.
Island stays, touring holidays and cruises can naturally encourage this. On an island, a slow dinner or evening walk can become the entire event.
On a tour, someone else handles the maps and logistics. At sea, there is often less urgency to be anywhere else.
“The phone doesn’t get banned,” Liebenberg says. “It just stops being the most interesting thing in the room.”
You don’t need to go completely offline
Still, a digital detox does not have to mean abandoning technology altogether.
Phones are useful for navigation, bookings, photography, emergencies and staying connected with family.
For that reason, Siswana recommends realistic boundaries rather than complete abstinence.
Couples could make dinner phone-free, put devices away during an excursion, spend the hour before bed without screens or agree that one person will take photographs while both remain present.
The important part is that these boundaries are negotiated rather than imposed.
A partner demanding that the other “put your phone away” can become another source of conflict. A couple deciding together that dinner will be phone-free becomes a shared ritual.
The goal is not surveillance or control. It is presence.
An African perspective on connection
Siswana also cautions against viewing the issue solely through an individualistic Western lens.
African approaches to relationality, he argues, can offer another way of understanding connection through ideas associated with Ubuntu, reciprocity, communal belonging and presence.
Being together has traditionally involved more than occupying the same physical space. It can mean sharing food, storytelling, visiting family, participating in celebrations and simply being present with others.
In an era when people can sit around the same table while absorbed in separate digital worlds, those practices offer a useful reminder: connection requires participation.
That does not mean partners should surrender their privacy or give each other access to their phones.
The question is not whether couples should have phones but whether those devices are consistently receiving the attention their relationship needs.
And perhaps that is the real lesson of the phone-free holiday.
You do not need to lock your devices in the hotel safe for a week. Start with dinner. Put the phone away during the sunset. Take the photograph, then put the camera down. Go for a walk without headphones.
As Siswana puts it, couples should not wait for a holiday to reconnect. The holiday simply provides an opportunity to practise something relationships require every day: intentional presence.
Perhaps the better question is not how much time couples spend together but whether they are actually available to each other when they are together.
Sometimes, the most romantic thing you can do on holiday is leave the phone in the hotel room and walk out the door together.
zamandosi.cele@nationalmg.co.za