A pair of YouTubers spent 144 hours in the ‘world’s most unknown country’ with no phones and it took them on an unexpected journey.
Posted onto the YouTube channel, Yes Theory, content creators Thomas and Staffan challenged themselves to travel around the remote country without the help of smartphones.
This is in order to ‘rediscover what it was like to make plans when our parents were kids’.
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Embarking on their journey, the YouTubers find themselves constantly trying to check their phones before realizing again that they don’t have them.
In the video, they say: “Going on a trip without our phones and without internet means that we cannot plan ahead. Everything is literally unfolding live as we take one foot in front of the next, with our ultimate goal being of making it to the southernmost point of São Tomé, rumored to be the most beautiful.”
But despite initial fears and challenges, the creators discover a new way of traveling along the way that frees them from the need to rely on their phones.
Without their phones, the pair are able to meet new people and get advice them local communities, where they also learn a local saying, ‘step by step, following the flow’.
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The video continues: “In this moment, our whole trip suddenly made sense… it embodies a mindset, a way of moving through life without rushing. Here, people trust that things will unfold when they’re meant to. There’s no pressure to constantly achieve, just permission to exist. It’s not about doing less. It’s about living with more presence and more peace. And in an odd way, arriving here not only without our phones, but also without any form of a fixed plan, we had set the stage to embrace this lifestyle.”
The video concludes with a reflection on what the YouTubers have learnt from the trip, adding: “It feels like the modern world has been moving so quickly that constant digital connectivity became normalized faster than anyone could have time to stop and ask, ‘Is this really how life is meant to feel?’
“After two days on the trip, we honestly forgot about our phones. We would go to bed hours earlier than we normally would, as we were actually tired at night and not overstimulated by our screens.”
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They said: “As we seek to explore and build bridges between people and cultures. Yes Theory has also always been about exploring our inner worlds and seeking peace within ourselves because if we cannot be at peace within, what’s any of it all for?”