Anyone remember when going on holiday was a relatively simple affair? Factor 20 - check; Ray Bans - check; Passport - check. Throw in a beach towel and you were off.

Not so in the communication-obsessed electronic age where the Blackberry, laptop, PDA and mobile phone are first into the suitcase and to hell with the rest.

But is being chained to the crackberry (and inevitably work) for two weeks counter-productive to what 'holidays' are traditionally supposed to be about? A growing number of leisure companies are beginning to think so with Elite Island Resorts, the owner of Palm Island in the Grenadines, last month banning the use of mobiles, laptops or PDAs within a half-mile radius of the main Casarina beach.

Meanwhile, over at the über-chic Mirmar Hotel in Santa Monica, guests can now book into the Electronic Rehab Weekend where all electronic devices are relinquished on check-in with guests encouraged to embrace yoga, herbal teas and the hotel's spa instead.

Continuing the theme is AlphaRooms.com which is calling for electronic gadgets to be banned from beaches and for holidaymakers to embrace total escapism. Slightly more pro-active is Sheraton Chicago's CrackBerry Detox.