We all know technology has gone far enough for us to look at all the cats we want to, help cure cancer and create cancerous communities, and more. Data transfer and storage prices have dropped like eggs from my bicycle, while usage naturally keeps increasing.

Some of us are unlucky enough to live on places the holy hand of 3G (not even wired broadband) has yet to bless. Of course the natives have adapted, but my habitat is quite different. I got to live for a month (and counting) with barely any cell phone signal, and EDGE on that rare occasion. 3G was out of the question, and the closest internet café was roughly an hour off-road drive away. Sure, jumping on the car when absolutely necessary is a viable option, but I have neither a license nor a car. Hitching a ride? Sure, if there’s any. So I had to do what every human has to do: adapt GASP

The week before leaving I stocked up on entertainment of all sorts: music, memes (I delegated this to a friend for the element of surprise), films, books, offline games and some more practice exercises for the SAT. “I have 3 GB to waste on Reddit and people,” - I thought. It seems I should’ve thought about the return trip and headphones breaking along the way.

/clickbait

For one, downloading images through EDGE connections is a pain, especially when there’s some sort of forest between the phone and the cell tower. The same image download would need to be restarted more than once. Instant messaging is no longer instant, just fast enough to create confusion for others and you have to rely solely on linking the message you’re referring to. Webmail? What is this sorcery? Even text-only email is too much. Oh, and when you get home your Arch laptops will have an update the size of a Windows 10 update waiting for you.

1. Save stuff for later

Make a website scraper and store your memes for later, find books and manuals you’d want to read and take one or two films/seasons on an SD card, download a bunch of offline games and geocache files and find something a bit more useful to do out there.

2. Don’t surf

Spare yourself the pain of downloading whole pages and automate saving some of them (especially useful when you have signal where you usually sleep). Use something like WebHTTrack or cook a script with wget or curl And don’t visit /r/youdontsurf even on 3G. If necessary, use a text-based web browser. My go-to is ELinks, with Lynx a close second. Pair it with your image viewer of choice and you’re good to go (hint: graphs don’t scale well with ASCII art).

3. Be comfortable

Patience isn’t endless, after all. Don’t lie on your bed flinging your phone in the air, hoping to get one last packet out of the connection, but don’t sit on branches or hot sand either. Roam around and find the places with the strongest signal, map them as GPX waypoints (I usually pick -80dB and higher) and hope the weather is on your side.

4. Forget about the world

You’re disconnected and this situation is almost always only temporary. If you’re unlucky enough to live in this situation daily then all these tips are probably second nature to you.

Find some other activity or explore a new hobby (offline, of course). Take actual care of yourself, go walking or running or swimming or whatever, just move. I have to say, this one was hard for me, mainly because of the scorching sun. Walking around in a forest under the (arguably faint) moonlight isn’t that dangerous as long as you make noise and can tell where local predators may live. Take care, even when going out at night in populated areas.

5. Have fun

Time flies when having fun. Just don’t lock yourself up unintentionally.