A self-confessed workaholic who was grinding herself towards a burnout has found a fresh perspective on life after ditching her phone on holiday.
Ellie Twigger has managed to snap out of a phone and work email addiction after she was pushing herself to save up enough to buy a house.
The 29-year-old eventually decided to go on holiday having been urged to do so by her boss, and swapped working deep into the evening and emailing from the poolside on previous breaks for an immersive 11-day trip to Cuba.
During that time she was almost completely computer and phone free, due to the very limited internet connection in the country and near non-existent electricity supplies following Hurricane Ian.
The account director has returned as one of a growing number of people who are singing the praises for off-the-grid, digital detox holidays and how they can give you a whole new perspective.
"With no internet and very little electricity, I was able to finally go completely off grid and immerse myself in every single experience that was offered to me, without worrying about what was going on in the office," Ellie told The Mirror.
"The first couple of days I'd look at my phone expecting something to happen, but then you're thrown into these experiences. I got to really immerse myself in the trip."
In recent years digital detox holidays have grown massively in popularity, seemingly as increasingly numbers of people start questioning their phone and computer usage.
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During the pandemic when many people were working from home and the boundaries between work and leisure became blurred, the sounds of Slack and email alerts filling living rooms across the country made switching off from the day job increasingly hard.
"I work in sales, so I'm constantly on my laptop. You never sleep," Ellie said. "You have your emails on your phone, LinkedIn, Slack. I am a bit of a workaholic. I enjoy my job, but it takes you away from real life.
"I take my laptop everywhere with me, just in case. I was glued. I had been away, but I'd taken my laptop with me, doing little bits every day. I checked my emails every day over Christmas. I've worked in a hotel before.
"I had this view that the more you work, the more money you make. I would happily sit and work until 9pm."
In her mission to save up for a house and move out of her parents' home, Ellie felt herself burning out and focusing too much on work.
She decided a change was needed and so wrote out a bucket list of things she'd long dreamed of doing, including a skydive, 10k run and climbing a mountain.
Ellie also decided to do a solo trip.
"I just thought 'I've always wanted to go to Cuba, I'm single, I'm going to do it now'," she continued.
"But I'm not the kind of person that can be trusted to go somewhere on their own. I like being with people as well. I'd miss my flight. So I signed up for WeRoad trip.
"I prepped my customers I was going away for two weeks and I put my out of office on. On my flight out there I connected to the wifi to email a colleague and sort something."
Ellie met up with 15 other lone travels who'd also forked out £900 for the trip when she got to Cuba, and quickly realised that her phone usage would be limited to a couple of texts to her parents to let them know she was okay.
"Usually people are out on their phones, but no one was doing that," she said. "We'd all talk about things because no one was on their phone. It was good to be thrown out. I knew if I could use my phone I would've.
"It was the best trip of my life. We had salsa lessons. We went to a waterfall."
Since coming back to the UK Ellie has hung out with people from the trip and gained a new perspective on the work like balance.
"Now I stop work at half five and I put my phone away when out with friends," she said. "I turn off notifications, especially work ones. I'm still involved with everything, but not obsessed with it. I 100% feel so much better."
