Buying the burner phone is a pretty simple affair. Some of those phones are so inexpensive now that casually dropping one in the trash doesn’t even feel like you’re throwing money away. There’s a catch here, though—some states legislators are getting wise to the burner phenomenon and beginning to put legislation in place that might require an ID even for your economical $9.99 clamshell. Hey, that’s fine if you have your well-made fake ID or a valid state card with your new name and address on it—except it still feels like an extra layer of information tracking that you might not want to deal with in your new life.
So is there another option, aside from burners? The answer is a measured “yes.”
Maybe you can acquire a single phone and stick with it, if you use other evasive measures.
I’ve had *67 recommended to me. Dial those digits prior to whatever number you’re calling, and your number and identification will be blocked from whoever’s on the other end. Problem with *67 is that it’s not too reliable. In a worldwide communications system that’s subject to some giant spying octopus monster like ECHELON, *67 feels a little too simple. Other keystrokes may do the same thing—I believe *31 is an option on some cells—but it doesn’t feel much more solid.
If you’re going ahead and using one of the major kinds of smart phone, there is an app available that can churn out a burner number for you to use as long as you like. That’s great for making calls to find out information about whether your “disappearance” is under investigation, for calling and spooking old enemies, or making random threats (which I would not recommend, but the heart wants). However, it doesn’t change the problem of that smart phone gathering a ton of other data even while you’re happily harassing folks under the burner app cover.
A good strategy for the burner phone, then: buy it well before you make your exit. Keep it simple, go with the old-fashioned non-smart phone. Set it up with your new name or as “anonymous,” whichever you’re allowed to do. Keep it charged and ready to go. Hell, they’re so cheap—buy three and take them all with you. The more the merrier. Think of the burner phones as a kind of insurance policy against a host of troubles often encountered by brave travelers like you.
It sounds like the title of the grimest children’s book ever, but we’re all big kids here, I’m guessing. So let’s really dive into the pressing issue of where to go to hopefully even stay, once you’re ready.
Location, location, location! In all kinds of real estate, it’s the most vital thing. When you’ve dropped off the grid, assumed a new identity and hopefully begun a brand new life in earnest, location becomes about ten times more important than it’s ever been before.
It may surprise you how many choices you have.…
Your options aren’t just a tent in the woods or a lonely shack outside a prairie town! Giant megacities are an option. I know of a guy who peaced out on his U.S. Army commitments, even though the military is not an at-will employer. They will happily hunt you down for saying sayonara to Uncle Sam without going through the proper channels. This guy managed, however, to go to ground in New York City, the City that Never Sleeps, and he did it for two full years before electing to turn himself in and face the consequences—for his own reasons. In NYC, our buddy managed to hold a job and blend in with the bustling crowd, and he could have easily kept that up for many more years.
Big cities, then, are absolutely an option for wherever you want to go next. They offer great commuter services, which you can ride anonymously all day long. Many landlords in a big city’s less fortunate neighborhoods are also exceedingly generous about renting to just about anyone who can pony up the money for the first and last month’s rent plus a security deposit. That is, you’ll get the place just as long as you’re not doing the walk-through while chewing on actual human body parts. But that’s the drawback, too—neighborhoods like that, your chances of becoming a crime victim go way up, and your inability to remedy that because you’re laying low remains the same.
Not to mention, there are cameras on every street corner and in every single electronics shop and chic cold brew coffee café on every block of a modern metropolis. The surveillance state is a real thing. No, that fearsome future world of all cameras being linked and checking your mug against some database isn’t quite here yet, but it’s close. And let’s say any kind of investigator looking for you—skip tracers, private detectives, cops—gets a whiff of your general location. One of those men or women gets the idea that your new routine has you bumbling down Main Street each day in search of coffee, it’s a sure bet they will start figuring out how to get hold of whatever video surveillance footage there may be along the way. Who wouldn’t? And if that footage is introduced to the right video analysis software, there’s an outside chance even your new Groucho glasses and White Sox ball cap will not shield you from the camera’s all-seeing gaze.
Big cities also present more opportunities to run into cops on the regular, which may be hazardous to both the career criminal and the innocent on the run from a bad situation. For one, the chance encounter with an inquisitive peace officer who has a better than average memory for faces on BOLO sheets could kill a newfound life of freedom fast. For the other, there’s the whole predicament of missing persons flyers—always distributed at police stations—as well as posters shared online.
I’m just ticking off a few of the disadvantages that come with trying to lose yourself inside a bustling big city. There are many more.
But then there’s the flip side of the coin.
This one is really not my cup of whatever’s good, hot, and tasty, but as I’ve said before, it’s a valid option. Remember talking about the emergency hobo bug-out and how to have some baseline plan in place to get there? That was fun, but I haven’t fully covered the issue of actually living as a wayfaring stranger the rest of your days.
Advantage numero uno, and this is a biggie: it’s about as off-the-grid as you can get. Roaming from town to town, riding the rails even (yes, still totally possible in many parts of the country), camping out in nature and communing with the stars in the fresh, open air. However, you’d also be communing with wild animals, anti-vagrancy laws, and other hobos, who may or may not be into killing fellow hobos for sport. Maybe that’s an urban legend, but it’s a pervasive one that should haunt your dreams!
Look, if you really are down with this option, I’m going to say you need to be on the younger side of things and in decent physical shape before you even begin. Men and women stand about an equal chance of getting killed during an ill-advised hop from the caboose of a northbound freight train out of Las Cruces.
Intentionally going full nomad is a different ball of wax than slipping out of your former life and reestablishing a new homestead elsewhere. Money is different—I’d argue you that you need more cash to start with and a really good way to hide it—and you’ll also want to plan some kind of route before you get moving.
Nice thing about that is if you are down with natural living, the United States of America already has a long and winding path laid down for you, and if you play your cards right, there is every chance you could live along this path and never run into unwanted prying eyes again. Other people, sure, but not detectives either private or government-paid. They rarely strap on the hiking boots when they’re on duty. I’d add: some of these natural solutions to disappearing and rebooting your life may not be great for more than a kind of buffering strategy, but they’re a way to give yourself time to think the next steps through.…