Here’s what happened when my son and I turned off our screens for a day

I was just outside of San Jose when my iPhone began buzzing inside the cup holder of my rental car notifications lighting up the screen like a slot machine jackpot My hand twitched toward the phone muscle memory stronger than willpower Mom My -year-old son Everest in the backseat barely looked up from his Nintendo Switch You re doing the grabby thing again He was right For all my lectures about his screen time I had my own digital addiction I often determined myself longing for a time before the constant hum of connectivity when being offline didn t feel like falling behind That s when I made an impulsive decision Once we hit San Francisco we d time-travel the only way modern families could by going analog No screens no feeds no Switch Just one day in the past lived fully in the present p m Checking in and opting out Our first stop was the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco a neoclassical jewel perched atop Nob Hill rising like a monument to a more elegant age White-gloved bellmen greeted us with quiet precision their crisp uniforms and practiced ease making the handoff of our bags feel like choreography Bridging the threshold felt like stepping through a portal Marble floors gleamed beneath towering columns and the chandeliers cast a warm golden light The urgency of the outside world faded The air changed Time it seemed had different rules here Once inside our room I solemnly powered off my phone a small ceremony for the digital life I was leaving behind The quiet that followed felt almost eerie This feels weird Everest reported urgent the stillness A moment later there was a knock at the door A tray arrived warm cookies and cold milk for Everest delivered without fanfare without expectation of photos or hashtags Just a simple hospitality the kind that lingers in lifelong memories not on a feed I reached for a cookie and paused surprised by what I wasn t doing No reflexive grab for the phone No instinct to capture Maybe this wouldn t be so hard after all a m Mechanical poetry We began our day at the Powell Street cable car turnaround where San Francisco s bulk iconic mode of transportation still rumbles to life Invented here in by Andrew S Hallidie these are the last manually operated cable cars in the world It s like sitting in a grandfather clock Everest announced as the car lurched the bell clanging warnings Since cable cars can t reverse operators must physically turn each car on a revolving wooden turntable at the terminus As we swayed up the steep inclines the city spread below us like a rumpled map the bay glittering like scattered coins a m Lost in translation It took a few effort to find the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory without Google Maps to guide us We could ask someone Everest suggested An elderly woman noticed my tourist distress You looking for something She directed us down Ross Alley a slender artery I hadn t even noticed then offered a dim sum recommendation for good measure People it turned out worked better than GPS Inside the fortune cookie factory the room was dim fragrant with warm vanilla and packed with antique machinery Since this pocket-sized workshop has produced cookies a day with batter dripping onto rotating iron griddles The warm cookies pliable for only a limited seconds are hand-folded with a hypnotic rhythm Before we left an employee pressed cookies flat unfolded and fresh from the griddle into our open hands Still warm she murmured We ate them as the crisp edges began to set the sweetness lingering just long enough to register before it was gone p m Elegant improvisation Afternoon tea at the Palace Hotel s Garden Court felt like slipping into a living Faberg egg Though the original hotel had been lost to the earthquake what rose from its ashes was even more spectacular The rebuilt Garden Court crowned by its magnificent glass dome and cascade of chandeliers pulsed with an opulence that surpassed even its legendary predecessor The tea system unspooled like a fairy tale silver teapots catching the light tiered trays stacked with miniature sandwiches jewel-box pastries and warm scones with clotted cream With no screens to distract us we noticed everything the curl of steam rising from teacups the clink of china the hushed tones of nearby conversations We made up backstories for strangers and imagined the secrets this room had overheard across a century of sophisticated afternoons p m Hands-on wonder The Exploratorium San Francisco s temple to hands-on discovery since was the perfect counterpoint to the vintage elegance of tea time While the rest of the city preserved its past this interactive science museum has invariably been about touching testing and thinking differently I watched Everest vanish into the darkness of the Tactile Dome a pitch-black labyrinth navigated by touch alone swallowed by an experience that couldn t be screen-grabbed His voice echoed from the darkness Mom you have to try this For an hour we lost ourselves in exhibits demanding participation Mirrors bent reality into pretzels sound waves became visible pendulums drew elegant patterns in sand p m Temptation Mus e M canique at Pier is part museum part arcade and entirely a love letter to the mechanical amusements of the last century More than vintage machines from hand-cranked dioramas to s-era games line the space all still operational and powered by pocket change Then we hit a snag A group of kids around his age huddled around their phones excitedly showing each other something Their animated chatter about a new tournament update made Everest s face fall Can I use your phone he petitioned I want to search up that challenge But before I could answer he d already spotted something else the brightly lit Road Race pinball machine and the phone was forgotten For the next hour Everest moved from fortune tellers to boxing matches to participant pianos cackling as mechanical wonders came alive p m Island of isolation Our cruise part of the San Francisco CityPASS pulled out from Pier engines growling slicing through waters once crossed by gold-seekers and prison ferries We were headed for Alcatraz the bay s majority of infamous rock As we approached the island my phantom phone anxiety peaked I imagined emails piling up calls multiplying the digital world spinning without me The prisoners apparently felt like this I noted suddenly Cut off wondering what was happening in the world Except they were actual prisoners Everest pointed out You re still in the world The return ferry revealed San Francisco in all its impossible glory hills defying gravity bridges slicing through mist neighborhoods cascading down slopes in waves of color Here self-driving cars navigated around cable cars and start-ups were based in Victorian houses The city existed in multiple timelines at once p m Sweet surrender As golden hour bathed the city we made our final stop Ghirardelli Square where the iconic chocolate sign flickered like a beacon from another era Inside the original ice cream shop the past didn t feel preserved it pulsed Checkered floors vintage chocolate-making tools and the massive G salvaged from the historic rooftop sign gave the place the charm of a working museum Everest went straight for the World Famous Hot Fudge Sundae a towering glass of vanilla ice cream drowned in molten chocolate crowned with whipped cream and a cherry He took a bite and closed his eyes reverent and happy Related Articles The shutdown has disrupted air journey Will that drive a surge in car rentals and train bookings Nearly million Americans forecast to cruise in AAA says The FAA is slashing flights because of the shutdown Here s what travelers can expect Travelers brace for chaos as US authorities shutdown threatens holiday flights Buckingham Palace will stage the largest-ever display of Queen Elizabeth II s fashion next year I demanded Everest what he thought of our analog day It was harder than I thought he revealed My brain kept reaching for my Switch even when I didn t want to play But everything felt more real I guess Like bigger And it was nice to have you without your phone As we walked through the square under a sky smudged with the last light of the day I realized our experiment had revealed something unexpected for me stepping away from screens didn t mean stepping out of the world It meant stepping deeper into it