Written by: Sini Hietaharju, Master of Tourism Research & Slow Traveller
Reason why I have finally decided to quit social media for good 31.7.2025 is:
My time is wasted there
It keeps on affecting negatively my mental health
I can’t focus on anything
Posting there makes me feel like shit
Come follow along my day-by-day journey for (hopefully) 1000 days without social media.
What makes this weirder - during the same time I am aiming to become successful full-time travel creator.
Yes, without social media.
I found at our cottage in Finland my old notes from 5 years ago about wanting to quit social media.
And back then, I didn’t.
Back in 2020 I had done a proper pros and cons list of quitting social media.
Back then I had some collaborations on Instagram, but mostly for free stuff, and affiliate deals instead of exactly paid collaborations. Sure, I had some paid stuff as well, but we're not talking about huge money.
I remember thinking back then how I sucked, as I got so few likes and comments.
Now that I look back, I think I got loads of likes and comments back then for my stuff.
Instagram is just built so that you are never satisfied.
Anyway, now I have decided to quit Meta platforms and TikTok.
With this I mean browsing and posting.
I’ve been posting quite often to my Instagram @sinimalism .
In other social media platforms I haven’t been so active, but rather just browsing.
As a blogger, platforms without the opportunity to add a link are quite useless.
So Instagram and TikTok aren’t great.
Although I know on Instagram you can, with ease, share links in stories or use Manychat solutions, but I jut don’t want to play that game anymore.
I guess Instagram does not ruin everyone’s mental health, but mine it really does.
But the platforms I will stick around at are Pinterest, YouTube, and my own website, obviously.
I might still occasionally use Facebook groups if I have something relevant to share.
Only thing is that I will still post a few things a month to Instagram, as my income depends on it.
So I can’t afford to quit it completely now.
But I will only post and ghost, and I don’t want to waste any more minutes on browsing there.
So here starts this, hopefully until the rest of my life, lasting journey of life without Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
It kind of feels crazy and sounds odd, as my dream is still to become a full-time travel creator.
But that is literally one of the reasons I founded this blog; slow travel corner of the internet without the algorithmic BS.
Today, I have felt relieved not to browse.
But also, I am constantly about to press social media apps open on my phone without even thinking what I’m doing.
I know, I gotta remove the apps completely, but as much as I don’t want to be the dramatic person who has to announce their leaving, I think I gotta do that.
As I have been quite active there throughout the years, and let’s admit it, I still want people to find to this blog.
Sooo I will do some kind of post.
But it is different to do a post with intention, than browsing and acting like I’m “searching for inspiration”.
But I will keep on posting here how does this progress.
And I’ll be honest if there will be setbacks and failures on the way.
Well, I’ve had quite a lot going on in my life in these days, as my car got broken into, so I had to figure out fixing the window and fighting the insurance company about the stolen stuff.
So I didn’t have too much time to think about the social media at all.
I do feel though that I have much more time now.
Now that I am not wasting 3 hours a day to nonsense browsing.
It makes me feel like I can take my time writing, reading and researching during work day, whereas earlier I was rushing between many tasks with dozens of tabs open.
Today I really wanted to create visual content, as I took nice pictures and videos from one of my favorite coastal points in Alicante.
But I stuck with my promise, but created some pinterest pins.
And started the Alicante Travel Guide article here.
I
WRITTEN BY
Hey there, I'm the Author
I'm Sini, an enthusiast in slow traveling, yoga retreats, travel as self growth journey and rubbing dogs.
This is your go-to slow travel corner of the internet.
I'm here to share my best travel tips, digital nomad thoughts and photographs from the journeys.
I happen to be kind of a professional in this as well, as I have my Master's degree within Tourism Research and both my master's and bachelor's thesis are about yoga travel.
I want to share the best knowledge of hidden gem retreat and mindful destinations, as well as some deeper, honest thoughts what digital nomad lifestyle actually is.
You can read more about me here.
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