Keeping connected through Internet cafes

For parents, a vacation lets them escape from the wired world of e-mail, pagers and phones.

But that's not the way some children, especially teens, want to go. They crave regular fixes of e-mail and instant messaging. And if your family owns a laptop, the kids may beg to take it on vacation.

Resist their pleas. Having a laptop sitting in your hotel room makes it too easy for kids, and parents, to get sucked back into e-mail and mindless computer games.

If you need more reasons for leaving the computer at home, consider these: Laptops can be a pain to lug around airports; they're a target for thieves; and connecting to the Web from hotel rooms can be expensive.

Kids still aren't convinced — or you don't own a laptop? Tell them you'll find Internet cafes at your destinations where they can go online plus get a snack. That way they really can have their cake and eat it.

Cybercafes everywhere

Travelers can find Internet cafes just about everywhere, from Thai beach resorts to Paris and the Himalayas. They range from hole-in-the-wall places with a few computers with dial-up Internet access to glitzy cafes with rows of computers and high-speed connections.

Whatever their style, cyber cafes are an easy and usually an economical way to get online. Plus they're good places to meet other travelers and get the flavor of local life.

During some recent trips with my 12-year-old, who yearned to contact her friends back home, we ended up in Internet cafes in Greece and Hawaii.

On Patmos, a Greek island near the coast of Turkey, we found an Internet cafe in the Blue Bay Hotel, a whitewashed building wedged between the harbor and sunbaked hills.

Inside the airy, simple cafe were two computers presided over by a young Greek woman, the daughter of a Patmos couple who had immigrated to Australia.

She served us pastries and honey-laced yogurt and, in perfect Aussie-accented English, told of the many emigrants who had returned to their Patmos heritage.

Soon it was my daughter's turn on a computer. She tapped out messages to friends in Seattle. I sat on the cafe's terrace, watching sailboats and ferries ease into the teardrop harbor and talking with French and British travelers.

My daughter's half-hour online cost only a few dollars. She was so pleased to connect with her friends that I took her back to the Internet cafe twice more. And I was content to sit on the terrace and watch the world go by.

Orchids and e-mail

On a recent trip to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, we ended up at an even tinier Internet cafe.

We were driving through the ramshackle little town of Hanapepe, whose block-long business district has seen much better days. But when we saw an "Internet cafe" sign next to a sculpture of a space alien holding a surf board, we just had to stop.

The cafe, which inside is as eclectic as its sign, is run by Wayne Ajimura, a 55-year-old native of Hanapepe.

He doesn't sell anything to drink or eat at the cafe. "There's no money in coffee. Most of the businesses in this building have gone broke. Me ... not yet."

Three computers fill half of the cafe — which is smaller than the walk-in closet of a suburban mansion — and high-speed Internet access costs $6 an hour.

A local man was typing out a business report. My daughter dived into e-mail. I checked out what Wayne was selling, besides computer time, at his Atomic Clock Cafe — a name he inherited, along with the chainsaw-carved space alien, from a previous owner.

His wares were as quirky as the carving. I could have bought dolls with air fresheners in them; decorative fish made out of ribbons; and a "waterless car-wash" product. I didn't.

What really keeps Wayne in business are orchids. He grows thousands of plants in a rural valley near Hanapepe, and showcases a few of his delicately flowered orchids at the cafe, although mainly he sells through mail and Web orders.

Wayne tends the cafe and his plants mostly by himself, although his 16-year-old daughter is grandly listed as company president on his business card.

"She doesn't do a whole lot," said Wayne, grinning. "She's in school, but she works some at the cafe to pay for her cellphone."

My daughter would have stayed online for hours, but Wayne was ready to shut down the computers and the cafe. We headed back to our hotel, happy with our impromptu Internet stop and a glimpse of Wayne's world.

Kristin Jackson's Family Matters column runs the third Sunday of each month. Contact her at 206-464-2271 or kjackson@seattletimes.com