A digital detox on Gili Air

Why the island helps

There is nothing here to scroll toward. No car to summon, no restaurant-reservation app that matters, no meetings, no commute to fill with a feed. The wifi exists and is good enough for a video call, but it is not fast enough to make an hour of doom-scrolling pleasant, and the island power blinks off for a few minutes now and then, which quietly resets the habit. The social pressure runs the right way too — nobody on the next daybed is staring at a phone, so you feel faintly conspicuous doing it yourself. That combination — nothing to reach for, mild friction when you do, and no one modelling the behaviour — does far more than willpower alone ever manages at home.

How good is the wifi, really?

Honest answer: fine for what a holiday needs, frustrating for what a compulsion needs. You can hold a video call most of the day, send photos, check a map, stream music. You cannot comfortably binge video, upload large files quickly, or rely on it never dropping. Mobile data (a local eSIM or SIM) is often faster than hotel wifi and works across most of the island. If your plan is a genuine detox, that mediocrity is a feature — the internet being slightly annoying is exactly the nudge that makes you put the phone down. If your plan is to work, read our remote-work guide instead, which is realistic about the limits.

Setting it up before you arrive

Tell the handful of people who genuinely need to know that you will be slow to reply for a set number of days, and give them one emergency channel — ideally a message to the hotel (WhatsApp +62 812-3970-1278), which reaches a human who can reach you, rather than your own inbox. Set an email auto-reply with a firm return date. Delete the two or three apps you already know are the problem — you can reinstall them in thirty seconds when you land back home, and knowing that removes the anxiety. Download offline maps, a few books, and some music or podcasts before you leave, so the phone keeps a legitimate job as a camera, a torch and a bookshelf.

The first 48 hours

The itch is real, physical, and it passes. Most people report the first day is twitchy — hand reaching for a pocket that has nothing in it — the second is noticeably calmer, and by the third the phone has migrated to a drawer and they have half forgotten about it. Help it along: leave the phone in the room for breakfast and for the pool, not in your bag where it is one zip away. Start each morning with something that needs both hands and full attention — a swim before anyone is up, a cycle round the island, the sauna and ice-bath circuit — so the reflex to check has nowhere to land during the hours it is strongest.

What to do with the hours back

People are consistently surprised how much time the phone was quietly eating — often two or three hours a day. On Gili Air that time refills itself: long unhurried meals where the conversation goes somewhere; a floating breakfast that takes an hour; the island’s activities done at half your normal pace, with a swim in the middle; a book actually finished, in two sittings, on a daybed; watching the light change at sunset instead of photographing it. Sleep improves within a few nights — partly the island, partly the removal of the screen an hour before bed — and our longevity guide covers how to be deliberate about that side if you want to.

If you have to stay reachable

A total detox is not always possible, and half a detox still works. The reliable middle ground: one fixed 30-minute window a day — after breakfast, never last thing at night — and the phone away the rest of the time, ideally in the room safe rather than on you. Tell your team and your family that this is the window and that messages outside it will wait. Turn off every notification except calls from two named people. The point is to make checking a scheduled task rather than a reflex; even that much breaks the loop.

Doing it as a couple or a family

It is much easier to unplug when the person across the table has too. Agree the rules together before you arrive — phones out of the bedroom, none at meals, a shared window if you both need one — so it is a joint project rather than one person policing the other. With teenagers (KOHO is 14+), a family-wide “phones in the basket at dinner” rule, applied to the adults first, tends to land better than a lecture. The car-free island helps here too: there is no “let me just check the maps” because there is nowhere to drive.

Taking some of it home

The change that actually survives the trip is usually small and specific: charge the phone outside the bedroom, keep it off the breakfast table, delete one app for good, turn off notifications for everything that isn’t a person. A week of not reaching for it — and noticing how much better you slept and how much longer the days felt — makes those changes feel obvious rather than like a sacrifice. That realisation, more than the tan, is the thing you bring back.

Common questions

Written by the team at The KOHO Air Hotel, a four-star boutique wellness retreat five minutes’ walk from Gili Air harbour. We answer questions like these by message most days — just ask.