Eli kept telling me to leave my phone, rolled his eyes when I asked about the WiFi code. But when I got him to Vaja beach, I think he saw the value.

A search on Pinterest with the name of the island we were on, Korcula, brought up a beautiful beach. A google maps search showed that it was a thirty minute bike ride away. The next morning I told them I had found somewhere great we had to check out.

It rained off and on all day, so we had to stop a couple of times and get food, or a beer, to stay out of the deluge. And then it would stop, and we would continue. Through the town of Rascice (we kept calling it “racist”), up a hill, and then a hike down…well, not a cliff exactly, but not something you want to do in flip flops, you know?

The beach was empty, except for a couple of Swedes we had met in the last restaurant, hiding out from the rain. We sat on this quiet beach, and it felt like our own little world — the gray clouds, the blue water, the green of the trees, the brilliant white of the rocky beach. And for a small moment, a moment in the real world validated the time I’d spent in the virtual.