Let’s check in. How are you doing in LA? No, really.
Is your right eye twitching from looking at a spreadsheet for six consecutive hours? Do you have a permanent, C-shaped “tech neck” curve from doomscrolling in bed at 1 AM? Have you, in the last 24 hours, felt that phantom buzz in your pocket, sworn your phone went off, and checked it, only to find… nothing?
You are not alone. You are just an Angeleno.
We live in a city of glorious, chaotic, non-stop noise. But it’s not the 405 that’s killing us. It’s the digital noise. The Slack notifications. The 24/7 email leash. The 48-message group chat about where to get brunch. The Instagram feed showing you your high school nemesis’s perfect kitchen renovation.
Your phone has stopped being a helpful tool and has become a tiny, tyrannical, sentient anxiety-box that you pay a monthly fee to yell at you.
This constant “multi-tasking” and “always-on” culture isn’t just tiring; it’s neurologically damaging. Researchers at Stanford University have shown that heavy media multitaskers—people juggling emails, texts, and social media—are less effective at switching between tasks and suffer from a “weaker filter” for irrelevant information. In short, our brains are turning into junk drawers.
This is where “silent travel” comes in.
It’s not just a trend; it’s an intervention. This isn’t about just “going on vacation.” This is about a full-system reboot. This is about going somewhere that doesn’t just allow you to disconnect but forces you to.
But silence, like LA’s tasting menus, comes in many flavors. Are you looking for the “I can’t hear anything but my own thoughts” silence? Or the “this is so beautiful I forgot I even had a phone” silence?
We’ve organized your digital detox by the type of quiet you so desperately need. Book the dog-sitter, set your OOO message, and go find a place where “ping” is just a sound a ’50s cartoon character makes.
1. The “Aggressive Nothingness” Silence: The High Desert near LA (Joshua Tree & Yucca Valley)
The Vibe: You are looking for emptiness. You’ve had enough of people, cars, and pop-up ads. You want to go somewhere so vast and so quiet that your spreadsheet-induced eye-twitch finally, mercifully, gives up the ghost. You need the desert.
Why It’s a Detox: The silence of the high desert is loud. It’s an “aggressive nothingness” that presses in on you. At first, it’s terrifying. Your brain, accustomed to a constant barrage of stimuli, will try to invent its own noise. “Did I leave the stove on?” “What if I just… screamed?”
But then, something magical happens. You start to hear things you haven’t heard in years. The sound of your own blood. The skitter of a lizard 20 feet away. The almost-imperceptible whoosh of a hawk’s wing. This isn’t just silence; it’s a recalibration of your entire nervous system.
And the cell service? God bless it, it’s terrible.
This is “awe” therapy. The American Psychological Association (APA) has published research on the “overview effect”—the profound sense of awe and “smallness” that astronauts feel. The desert is the average person’s closest equivalent. Staring up at a black-velvet sky, utterly untouched by LA’s light pollution, with the Milky Way exploding from end to end, is a spiritual chiropractic adjustment. It rearranges your priorities. Your “urgent” email from accounting suddenly seems… less urgent.
The Luxury: This is not about a motel. This is about finding a high-end, architecturally significant VRBO or Airbnb. Search for “Yucca Valley,” “Pioneertown,” or “Wonder Valley” (Joshua Tree proper can be crowded). Look for keywords like “secluded,” “designer,” “fire pit,” and “hot tub.”
This is the ultimate adult experience: sitting in a perfectly heated cedar hot tub, a glass of wine in hand, staring into the infinite, silent void, and not having a single bar of Wi-Fi to ruin it.
2. The “Enforced, Monastic” Silence: Mount Baldy Zen Center near LA (Mount Baldy)
The Vibe: You are not to be trusted. You know that if you go to a nice cabin with Wi-Fi, you will, around Hour 4, “just quickly check” your email. You will fail. You need a spiritual bouncer. You need to go somewhere where the silence is mandatory.
Why It’s a Detox: Welcome to the Mount Baldy Zen Center. Tucked at 6,500 feet, this is a genuine, practicing Zen monastery. And they are not kidding around. They offer “Introduction to Zen” weekends and “Silent Sesshin” (retreats) that are built around zazen (seated meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation).
The schedule is rigid. The food is simple (and often vegetarian). And the main rule is noble silence. You don’t just “not talk” during meditation; you “not talk” at all. Not at meals. Not in the hallways. You are not allowed to read, write, or use any electronic devices.
For the first 24 hours, you will think you are going insane. You will have entire, one-sided arguments in your head. You will notice everything—the way a fellow retreater chews their rice, the ache in your left knee. And then, around Day 2, your brain… just… stops. It gives up. And in the vacuum, a profound, unshakable peace rushes in.
You are literally re-wiring your brain. The World Health Organization (WHO) has long identified noise pollution as a “major threat to human well-being.” But what about the lack of it? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has highlighted studies suggesting that prolonged silence can lead to neurogenesis—the literal growing of new brain cells in the hippocampus, the region responsible for memory and emotion. You are not just detoxing; you are healing.
The Luxury: The luxury here is not a mint on your pillow. It is the profound, soul-shaking luxury of true permission. You have permission to not perform, to not be “on,” to not be interesting, to not respond. You have one job: exist. For the average LA professional, that is the most luxurious, and most terrifying, thing in the world.
3. The “Analog, 1970s” Silence: Ojai Valley (Ojai)
The Vibe: You want to detox, but you’re not an animal. You still want an excellent coffee, a well-curated bookstore, and a really good glass of wine. You just want to do it all in a place that feels… slower. A place where the biggest news of the day is the new flavor of olive oil at the farmer’s market. You need Ojai.
Why It’s a Detox: Ojai is the “soft-entry” digital detox. People call it “The Ojai Vortex,” a half-joking term for the area’s famously serene, almost magical quality. Part of that “magic” is practical: the east-west facing valley (one of the few in the world) creates a “pink moment” sunset that is legitimately staggering.
The other part of the magic? The cell service is spotty. The town has actively resisted the “sameness” of other resort towns. You won’t find the usual chains. What you will find is Bart’s Books, the world’s greatest outdoor bookstore, a sprawling, sun-dappled labyrinth of paper and ink. You’ll find meditation centers like the Krotona Institute of Theosophy (go for the library and the quiet gardens).
This is an “analog” detox. You are replacing digital stimuli with physical stimuli. Instead of scrolling a screen, you are turning a real, paper page. You are smelling the “creosote and citrus” air. This taps into the same sensory, non-digital joy that has driven the vinyl and “craft” renaissances. It’s not “no-tech”; it’s “good-tech.” A book, a bicycle, a wine glass—these are all forms of technology. And they’re all better for your soul than an algorithm.
The Luxury: Stay at the Ojai Valley Inn. Yes, it’s famous, but for a reason. It’s a 220-acre bubble of pure, unadulterated “calm.” You can spend a day at their world-class spa, take an apothecary class, or just sit by your private fireplace. It’s the perfect basecamp for your analog adventures.
4. The “End of the World” Silence: Channel Islands National Park (Santa Cruz Island)
The Vibe: You need to get away. Not just “out of the city.” You need to go somewhere so remote that there is no possibility of a “quick” trip back. You need to cross a body of water. You need to go to the “Galapagos of North America.”
Why It’s a Detox: A trip to Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands, is a 3-hour journey: a 1-hour drive to Ventura, a 1-hour boat ride (with Island Packers), and a 1-hour buffer to wonder what you’re doing.
And then you arrive. And it is… silent.
There are no cars. There are no stores. There is no Wi-Fi. There is no cell service. There is nothing. Just you, a handful of other hikers, and the island’s full-time residents: the tiny, adorable, and fearless island fox (a creature found nowhere else on earth), and a symphony of screeching ravens.
You will hike on cliffs that fall straight into the turquoise Pacific. You will explore sea caves by kayak. You will sit on a deserted, wind-swept beach and eat the sandwich you packed, and it will be the best sandwich you have ever had.
This is “Nature Therapy” (or “ecotherapy”) at its most potent. The Japanese have a term for it: Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” As NPR has reported, decades of research have shown that just being in nature (no hiking required) can measurably reduce cortisol (your stress hormone), lower blood pressure, and boost your immune system. The Channel Islands are a “forest” of ocean and sky. It’s a full-body, sensory bath that scours your brain clean.
The Luxury: This is the luxury of true isolation. You are on an island. You have no choice but to surrender to its schedule (the boat’s schedule) and its reality. You can’t “check in” or “post” about it. You have to live it. The profound, smug satisfaction you will feel when you return to the mainland is its own reward.
5. The “Cozy & Curated” Silence: Idyllwild (San Jacinto Mountains)
The Vibe: Let’s be honest: the idea of “no Wi-Fi” gives you a low-grade panic attack. You’re not an animal. You just want the option of silence. You want to be the curator of your detox. You want to be quiet… but with a really good bakery nearby.
Why It’s a Detox: Idyllwild is the “Digital Detox for Beginners.” At 5,000+ feet, this artsy, pine-scented town is the perfect “coolcation” (as we’ve discussed), but it’s also the perfect “silent” vacation.
The “detox” here is a choice. You rent a beautiful, historic cabin (like at the Idyllwild Inn) or a stunningly remodeled A-Frame. You bring that stack of books you’ve been “meaning to read.” You build a real, actual fire in a fireplace. You choose to put your phone on “Do Not Disturb” for 48 hours.
The town itself encourages this. There are no stoplights. The town “Mayor,” famously, is a Golden Retriever. You will spend your day hiking on quiet, needle-soft trails, and your night reading a book by the fire. You will choose to be analog.
The Luxury: The luxury here is coziness. It’s the Danish concept of hygge. It’s the joy of a warm blanket, a hot drink, a good book, and the sound of the wind in 200-foot-tall pine trees. It’s the luxury of slowing down to the speed of a wood-burning fire, rather than the speed of a fiber-optic cable.
You can still use your phone’s map to find the Honey Bun Bakery (and you should). But you’ll find you don’t want to. You’re too busy being… content.
Conclusion: The Return to the Noise in LA
The point of a digital detox isn’t to quit technology forever. That’s impossible. We have jobs. We have group chats.
The point is to remember that the “off” switch exists. It’s to remind your brain what peace feels like, so you can carry a small piece of it back with you.
So, go. Leave the tyrant in your pocket behind, even for just 48 hours. Go to the desert, the mountains, or the sea. Stare at a tree. Listen to the wind. Get bored.
Your inbox will be a dumpster fire when you get back. But you, for the first time in a long time, will be perfectly, blissfully, and silently okay.
Read More: Your Guide to Escaping and Celebrating
Now that you’re recharged, here are more ways to live your best, most elevated LA life.
- LA’s “Swicy” Cocktail Scene: 7 Bars Setting Your Mouth on Fire: You’re back from your silent retreat and ready to talk. Loudly. Over a drink with a chili in it.
- Adult-Only LA: 7 Elevated Experiences You Can’t Bring Kids To: Keep that kid-free, “zen” feeling going with a night of grown-up, sophisticated fun.
- The “Coolcation” With Your Canine: 5 Luxury Pet-Friendly Cabin Getaways from LA: Want to find silence, but can’t bear to leave your (also-stressed) dog behind? Here’s how.
- 10 Los Angeles Restaurants Parents Love for Upscale Family Dining: Okay, time to re-enter reality. But you don’t have to sacrifice taste.
About the Author
Culinary Passages is an online lifestyle guide dedicated to the art of “Eating, Trawling, Discovering, and Celebrating.” We believe in making every moment an occasion, from a perfectly planned holiday to a blissful afternoon dining with your pet. Based in Los Angeles, we are passionate about finding and sharing the best upscale experiences, practical tips for luxury living, and ways to make every day more memorable. We’re your go-to source for curated guides on dining, travel, and creating a beautiful life with your loved ones (furry ones included!). Ginger Graham wrote this article and she hopes you love it!
What’s your favorite way to digitally detox? Share your secret silent spot in the comments below!
