When did you last truly go away?

Not just away from the office or away from home. Actually away. Away from the noise of the physical world but also from the digital one.

I started thinking about this recently watching people on my tours. They were outdoors, surrounded by some of the most extraordinary landscapes in Australia, and yet they were constantly being pulled back. A notification here. A message there. Companies and people with their own agendas, reaching into the moment without even asking permission. And most of them did not even realise it was happening.

It made me ask a harder question. How do we really disconnect when the very device we use to capture our memories is the same one stealing our attention?

I Was 18 and on a Train to Prague

I remember sitting in the cabin, reading signs as they passed outside the window, noticing how the curtain colours had changed from station to station. Noticing small details about the world around me because there was nothing else competing for my attention.

I talked to strangers. Endlessly. We exchanged something real but not phone numbers or social media handles. Just conversation, eye contact, the particular intimacy of two people going somewhere.

That world felt different. Days felt longer, more mysterious. We had mobile phones but not like today. Not with unlimited data and an algorithm designed to keep us scrolling.

I remember being genuinely excited before every trip to see who I was going to meet, what new things I was going to learn. It was magical. A little mischievous. The stranger next to me in the cabin, who did not mind eye contact, was there for a reason.

What I Started Noticing on the Tours

A while ago I started taking photos for the people on my tours. Partly to give extra service, partly because I believe I capture real moments when people do not know their photo is being taken. Those are always the best ones.

But after a while I noticed something unexpected.

When I told people I would take the photos for them, most of them stopped reaching for their own device. Completely. They leaned into the experience without thinking twice about it. They looked up. They started talking to each other. They were just there. Fully there.

And then I saw it more clearly than ever. The same device that is supposed to help us make memories is actually stopping us from really making them. We feel almost a pressure to take the photos, to put them online. As though if we do not document it, it did not happen. As though we become invisible if we do not share it.

The Paradox Nobody Really Talks About

We are the most photographed generation in human history. And somehow, many of us feel like we are missing our own lives.

I do not think the answer is to throw your phone into the ocean. I certainly have not done that. But I do think there is something worth sitting with in this question.

What if the most important moments are not the ones we capture, but the ones we are fully present for?

What if the memory you are trying to make is already happening, right now, and all you have to do is put the phone down and let it?

What I Know From the Trails

Every time I guide someone into nature, something shifts. It does not happen immediately. The first twenty minutes people are still a little scattered, still thinking about what they left behind.

But then the trail narrows. The signal drops. The trees close in a little and the light filters through and something in the body starts to remember that it was built for this, not for screens, not for notifications, not for other people’s agendas.

People start noticing things. The texture of the sandstone underfoot. The way the air smells different near the creek. The sound of a bird they cannot name but somehow recognise.

They are not taking photos of these things. They are just experiencing them.

And at the end of the day, those are the things they talk about. Not the photos they got. The moments they were actually in.

An Invitation

I chose this work because I believe nature is one of the few places left where disconnecting feels genuinely natural. Where nobody is going to judge you for putting the phone away. Where the world is interesting enough that you do not need a screen to fill the silence.

If any of this resonates with you, I would love to take you out there.

Not to perform being in nature for your Instagram. Just to actually be in it. For a day. To remember what that feels like.

That is what Beyond Guidebook is built for.

Sabina Laniova is a nature guide, ecotherapist and founder of Beyond Guidebook. She runs small group and private tours across NSW national parks.

beyondguidebook.com.au | sabinalaniova.com.au | @sabina_laniova