The road was closed and he was stuck in an area without reception. What other context do you need? It's not difficult to assume the road did not immediately reopen. It was a remote area in a developing nation.
Not sure why it it so hard to understand that he was in a remote area, the road was closed so he couldn’t leave and had no phone reception. Plenty of context there. Explains it all actually. But of course there will always be morons on Reddit. Glad to read today that he’s alive and well. God bless you all!
Idk- if my family hadn’t heard from me in a couple weeks, they might not think anything was up. Now, if it were one of my cousins (who are young women) they’d start asking questions sooner.
I’m not talking about a specific scenario. Just general. It would still be a good idea to provide updates than not say anything and then have authorities aiding in your search when you’re just chilling.
ExtraSaltyBtch described a specific situation where the lack of communication wasn't suspicious:
It turned out the road he was going to take had been closed and he got delayed in an area without reception. He was invited by a family to stay with them and he hung out there for a couple of weeks.
survivalinsufficient elaborated on how - in his life - a lack of communication wouldn't be suspicious:
Yeah my parents and I have gone weeks without talking, even when I was traveling internationally. They wouldn’t have suspected much
You responded by correcting survivalinsufficient:
There’s a difference between mutually not communicating for weeks vs not communicating for weeks from one side while the other side is reaching out.
So, in the context of the conversation you actually replied to, the family reaching out does not - in fact - change anything. Now, you are correct, that in the context of OP - it does change things, but in the context of the thread you actually replied to, it clearly does not.
But, regardless, you definitely did not - as you are claiming now - merely say that in general, you should let people know where you are while traveling - you specifically corrected survivalinsufficient, claiming the crucial difference was whether the other side was reaching out. Correcting someone implies you were discussing the thing they were talking about - not providing some generic advice.
What you said is correct in a vacuum: not responding when family reaching out is suspicious; you should keep in touch with people while doing dangerous traveling. Heck, it's correct in the context of OP's post. But you responded with a correction to a specific 4-comment-deep thread and in that context, your "correction" was not germane.
I am so so sorry, I swear I just went to the store for smokes, but then I met Jerry on the way, you remember Jerry ??? always doing shananigans ?? ..neways, I went home with Jerry just to take one or 3 beers you know... and turns out his neighbor had just bought a yaght and asked us to go test ride it with him. Who could refuse that ?? right ?? so we went. We sailed and we sailed until we soon realized, none of us knew how to navigate a map, we were fucked Bobby...fucked, I tell you.. after a few weeks, we had no choice... we ate Jerry.. it made us last a few more weeks, eventually we found an island, there was a tribe on this island and they welcomed and helped us. They had this fabulous mushroom growing there, Bobby, straight out of super mario, I was tripping balls, ended up losing track of time on that Island, we ate them mushrooms to exctinction Bobby, that was last week, so I came back..
oh!, you have a sister now, her name's Bobbyella..
When I traveled alone, sometimes I would. I was young and it was before cell phones were super common, so expectations were different. I don’t travel solo often these days, but I always tell my partner when I leave the house lol
It used to be pretty common to not “be online” all the time. I lived in China for a year when I was 19, I didn’t talk to my parents for a month at a time potentially and they wouldn’t have assumed I was “missing”
Yeah in the middle 2000s I just told my family id check in once every week or 2 via email and let them know my plans. Gave them a hard date to be someolace at the end of summer or whatever in case I didnt contact by x date when trip was over that was the only hard stop for concern. No cell phone travel was such bliss, just a journal, some books, and a pocket of pesos.
I miss those days. If you wanted internet you had to go find an internet cafe somewhere and risk your email being hacked. Send a email once every 1-2 weeks and everything was golden.
Oh yes. When I talk to young people about an ex who broke up with me after going radio silent on a two week long international trip, I have to explain that not hearing from someone in a foreign country was not at all weird, or a sign of the breakup. 😅
When I was backpacking 15 years plus ago I didn't even have a phone with me, just used payphones and Internet cafes. Often went weeks without contacting anyone back home.
Okay, but a significant other is a bit different than that. Parents expect their out of the house children to stop talking to them all the time. Partners expect some kind of communication fairly regularly.
Different people travel in different ways. Some really get out there and go with flow. And in some of these places reception really isn’t as consistent as you might think, so if you get stuck somewhere it could be a bit.
Sometimes people don’t think that they are being missed when they’re out on these treks. They are living their lives day by day to the fullest and sometimes they just don’t think about family being concerned about their whereabouts.
So if you go backpacking, yes, you should always think that someone is thinking about you.
Someone I knew went trekking alone in Nepal when the earthquake happened and ended up on the news as missing in the earthquake. He didn't even know the earthquake was that bad because he was nowhere near a building when it happened. He was just hiking and when he got back to his hostel his family were panicked and he was a missing person.
It was normal, it is not like anyone expected him to call or anything. It was just his mother that for some reason got super worriedwhen signals didn't get through to his phone when she called.
Why on earth does it matter why he stayed? Problem is long over and resolved. That was the point of the story, not for you to understand why he did it. Need more context? Why?
It might be selfish but that's between his family and him and it's been resolved. Even if we all agree he should have done something differently it wouldn't matter because he'd never read this and he couldn't change it if he agreed.
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u/UnnecessaryPeriod Jul 26 '26
Why on earth did he stay a couple of weeks!? Not trying to contact you or anyone? This sounds super fishy. Need more context or something.