Check Your Email While on Vacation: It's Okay, Almost Everyone Does It

When Americans flock to the beach, mountains, distant cities and other places over the Labor Day weekend, many will be bringing Frisbees, tennis raquets, beach blankets, and paperback novels for summer's last fling.

Others will be bringing along their Blackberries, Treos and notebook computers.  If you're one of those people who is traveling with an extra suitcase just for power chargers, I want you to know that you're not alone.  Your addiction to email is far from rare.  Millions of other people around the world check their email while on vacation.  And most of these millions of ordinary people like you check their email on vacation without harming their --or their family's-- vacation.

Checking email while traveling is a normal human process.  It's nothing to be ashamed of.  It's nothing to hide.  You don't have to do it on your Blackberry in the bathroom.  You don't have to pretend you're checking out restaurants, while instead you're slinking into an Internet cafe.

In fact, checking your email while on vacation may actually improve the quality of your vacation.  That's the conclusion of the many email-checkers who are already out of the closet.

Just ask Samantha Nolan, who lives in Washington, DC:  "While I am away, I go to Internet cafes every few days and go through my email.  I delete everything that is not urgent, and answer those that are.  Then I go about my fun filled days knowing I haven't missed anything, and that all is well at home."

That's why Samantha checks her email:  It relieves anxiety and reduces worry.  What good is a vacation if you're mind is partly somewhere else?  The answer is, no good at all.  A vacation is 50 percent physically being somewhere, 50 percent being there mentally -- relaxed and content.   Some people prefer active outdoor vacations.  Some people like resting on the beach.  Others like to eat their way through the world's great cities, trying new cuisines.  But none of these things is enjoyable if you're fretting over unchecked email.

Of course, the nay-sayers will tell you, "Let go of your email.  It may take a day or two for you to get into the groove of a vacation, but the only way to do that is to not check your email, not give in to temptation.  Don't give in to the dark side of email."   To which the email-checkers reply, "Yeah, right.  You try and relax when you know for an absolute certainty that you're going to have 1,000+ emails waiting for you when you return.  You try and relax when you're wondering if your credit card company emailed you an alert about your card being used fraudulently.  You try and relax, wondering if you're missing that chance to chat with your son or daughter who's just gone away to college."  Samantha Nolan's mind is clear, refreshed, and ready to enjoy her vacation because she checks her email.  She's receptive to her vacation because her worries are greatly diminished  Nolan knows "I have no emails waiting, because I clear them each time I check my email while I'm away."

One element of enjoying a vacation is knowing that your first days back at work won't be hell on earth.  Hundreds or thousands of waiting emails are a reality for many people.  Worrying, thinking, fretting, anticipating all those emails is not an imaginary concern.  It's a stark reality that many people have to contend with.  The best way not to worry about 1,000 waiting emails is get rid of them before they accumulate.  When the worry disappears, the vacation becomes fun.

"I can’t relax when I’m on vacation unless I check email, says Kathy J. Abbruzzetti of Hewlett Packard.  "If I don’t check it, then I spend my vacation worrying about all of the email waiting for me when I return and the fact that it will take a minimum of 2-3 days just to catch up.  If possible, I check it during the in-between or the quiet time – and I check it from a comfortable location – like my patio table on the weekends with a glass of wine or on the deck overlooking the ocean while at the beach!"

And why not?  There are no rules that say you have to check your email while sitting upright at a desk in your hotel room.

Kate Wulff, who works for the federal government, feels the same way.  She says, "If I'm somewhere (like visiting my parents) where checking my work email is easy and I have time, I do check it.  I'd rather spend a few minutes deleting the messages that will be over taken by events when I back than having to face more than say 200 emails.  I also like to accept appointments so my calender stays relatively current.  I also sometimes respond to the emails that take little effort on my part.  Although that sometimes results in someone reminding me I'm on vacation."

Toni Marechaux does what a lot of people do while on vacation -- light email checks, looking for just the urgent messages (though urgency is often not the same thing for the sender as the recipient) and messages that are from friends and family -- in other words, fun email.   Despite this, she says, "I'll still have at least a few hundred emails every day --yes every day-- to deal with when I return, but I can relax on vacation knowing that I've dealt with anything urgent and also deleted the spam from each account using my handheld."

In fact, checking email for personal mail seems to be one of the driving forces behind checking email while on vacation.  It's not just work that drives people to check their email while away.  That's Michael Eichler plan.  "I definitely don't check my work email while on vacation.  Personal email, maybe.  Heck, I am often emailing pictures of my vacation to friends while I'm on vacation still.  I always make sure to come home from a vacation at least one day before returning to work, and try to spend some of that extra day catching up on email," he told me.

Lars Bromley is another person who'd rather do a quick email check than let a mountain of email overwhelm him when he's back: "I work in nonprofit human rights stuff, so its not legally mandated that I stay online but that's the nature of the work. Also, most problems are best nipped in the bud, so I'd rather take a minute to respond from the beach than spend hours sorting the issue out a week later."

It's especially compelling to check your email when you work for yourself.  Claudia Polley who owns Art Associates in Washington, DC, says: "In my business, which is working as a management consultant for international cultural institutions, I work in nearly every time zone.  I take long vacations at least twice a year (minimum three weeks) and a fair bit of time away of shorter duration (two to four days at a time).

"I first check messages from clients, colleagues, friends, and family I know.  Then if there’s time, I’ll open up new/unknown stuff that has a sufficiently intriguing subject line.   I’ve found it easy to do intense email reading and response for no more than an hour a day while away, and be able to return to the beach or the bar or the balcony without much time lost in changing gears.  I’ve a sense of relief that I’ve done good work for my clients through staying in touch (and hopefully imparting little pearls of wisdom), and I’ve stayed alert to what’s going on while gazing out on whatever scene lies before me.  It took a while to learn how to do it, but I’m pretty darned good at it now, and have found my rhythm or comfort zone in what can be a rather maelstrom-like existence."

Perhaps it's easier when checking email is an accepted part of your life.  One person, who prefers to remain anonymous, told me, "When on vacation I check my email once a day. In my family I am the "computer person" so checking my email is accepted as part of the fabric of my personality, for lack of a better description. Thus checking my email, is no more or less an issue than any other aspect of my nature. If I didn't check my email they would problably worry that something might be wrong."

The idea that checking email while on vacation is wrong creates a perceived need to do "it" when nobody can see you.  But it's bad to have to check your email surreptitiously -- so much better for everyone when things are out in the open.  But some people are pressured to do that by their family members' unrelenting disdain and criticism of checking email.  Michele Martin of National Public Radio is sometimes forced to hide her email need during vacation: "I do check email while on vacation (although I find myself hiding in the bathroom to do it--busted!).  If I don't I have hundreds waiting for me when I get back and I can't stand it"

Raise your hand if you've ever checked your email while in a hotel bathroom or closet.  You're not alone.

It's easiest to check email while on vacation when more than one family member does.  That's Diana Seasonwein's situation.  Seasonwein, a clinical social worker, said "If possible, I check it while I’m away.  Even overseas, it is possible to check.   I don’t have to sneak away:  My husband doesn’t have a problem with it, and in fact, he checks his email also."

Perhaps that's the best solution to dealing with the problem of how do you check your email while on vacation without enduring the wrath of your family:  Get them all Blackberries, too so that they can enjoy the pleasure of a stress-free vacation.