going off the grid

I'll be traveling with a friend to Australia in a few weeks and she called me this evening because she couldn't figure out how to use the power converter she had bought to be able to charge her phone and use her hairdryer while we're traveling.  I was absolutely no help at all.  I explained to her what she then recalled from our other trips together - I don't take anything with me that needs pluggling in or charging.  My digital camera uses batteries, I don't use a hairdryer, and I turn my phone off when I leave the country. I know, I know, how weird is that?  I remember sitting at a dinner in Scotland two years ago. At one point, of the 15 of us around the table only three, myself included, were not on our phones.  I think that's a shame.  There are so many interesting things to experience and people to meet when traveling. For example, during that same meal I had a great conversation with our tour bus driver, a nice young man named Kevin, who spoke with such a thick Scots accent that I had to have him write a couple of things down - TV shows he was recommending I should watch on Netflix. Learning about culture in other countries is so interesting, isn't it?