By Suzanne Kantra for Techlicious

Do You Need Your Laptop for a Good Vacation?

The ubiquity of mobile devices has changed society in so many ways, for better and worse. Some of our biggest pet peeves are now people who have cell phone conversations in confined public spaces or people who text while walking or driving. Yet many of us have gladly done away with land lines and now enjoy turn-by-turn navigation on our phones or tablets to get us where we need to be—a vast improvement over the days of using a paper map.

Indeed, mobile devices can markedly improve travel. You can sit at an outdoor café in Athens overlooking the Parthenon and find your hotel for the night with a few taps in your Trip Advisor app on your smartphone. Or you can use Google Maps on your tablet to see exactly where you are in midtown Manhattan relative to the closest subway station.

But is our reliance on our mobile devices for travel getting out of hand?

According to a new survey conducted by Intel, U.S. vacationers will go to great lengths to bring them along and find places to charge them. And if they can’t use them, it’s cause for distress.

The “Intel Survey: Tech Norms for Travelers,” specifically exposed the obsession travelers have with their Ultrabooks, laptops and tablets and found that Americans are emotionally attached to these devices to the point of being less stressed when they have them available while vacationing.

Check out these stats from the U.S. travelers surveyed:

This excerpt appears with permission from Techlicious.

About Techlicious

Techlicious was founded by consumer tech guru, Suzanne Kantra, Techlicious is your daily scoop on everything from the best new mobile phones and apps to holiday shopping guides to step-by-step instructions for protecting your privacy on the Internet.

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