If you are fed up with the reality, or you have any other reasons to hide away from anyone you know and survive in the wilderness, this article is just for you to learn how to disappear. We will tell you all about living off the grid. Forget about Twitter and Facebook, pack up more cash, collapse all your online social media profiles, and leave nothing as a trace. You may wonder if it is a crime to try to disappear. To know the answer, read on.
People may want to disappear for many different reasons. Maybe you are too bored with living in a big city and can not bear the speed of life anymore, or your small hometown became a burden since everybody knows everybody. Maybe you owe someone plenty of money you do not have or are involved in something criminal and illegal. Even if you are just a curious human being who simply got inspired by Radiohead’s song and now wants to know How To Disappear Completely and Never be found on your own experience, it does not matter. This article is for everyone who wants to start a brand new life with a brand new name, pack up a bug-out bag, close the door, and never come back. So let’s dive into this mysterious and complicated topic.
Disappearance Is Not A Joke
Do not take the Great Vanishing Act as something frivolous and reckless. It is not easy to disappear entirely in our modern world when every CCTV camera on every street corner watches every move, and a clever neuro network is analyzing every post on your social media. When a person disappears, it becomes a big deal. The government pays attention to that a lot, not saying about your friends and family. An act like this gets a report pretty quickly. Of course, there are moments when your life is in danger, and legal authorities can help you with a new identity and other stuff, but if you know that situation is only in your hands – this is a way different story. Be sure that it is a desperate measure and be ready to abandon old life without any regrets and start a new one with a new name. This guide will provide you with the information you need.
Planning By Careful Thought Is The Only Way To Succeed
If you want to vanish without a trace in a couple of days, it might turn out to be very unsuccessful. This tricky thing requires a serious amount of time and a good plan. Of course, certain circumstances do not allow you to waste time, and you have to make decisions on a run literally. That is why, in this article, we prepared two possible scenarios that can help you in both cases.
Planning The Disappearing Ahead
Cutting Ties
Some people think that this is the hardest part.
First of all, be prepared to lie a lot so you can slowly but surely vanish from your social circle, including friends and family. Yes, distancing may cause you and your loved ones a lot of pain, but you can not skip this part. Otherwise, you are not ready to disappear.
Do not do it overnight. It will cause suspicions. Take your time on this one. You must act as natural as possible, so in the end, people won’t expect you to be around or to hear from you a lot. In the beginning, your excuses will probably sound stupid, strange, or infantile. But keep on doing it, create your new personality and social behavior step by step, until it becomes a part of you for the rest of your life.
Cash Only
Yes, forget about having a bank account and your credit card. Start to withdraw all your money slowly, but not all at once. Become unbanked to embark on your path of disappearance. Remember – you do not want the attention. Start saving as much money as you can. You will need a lot of cash. Keep in a safe place, like a diversion safe, for example.
Instagram? We Don’t Know Her
This step is obvious. The Internet might be full of your personal information, photographs, and other stuff, which is not good for anyone who wants to disappear. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even your email address have now become a threat to you. You have to erase yourself from every social media, even your old accounts that you do not use anymore. Do not rush. Take your time. The excuse for someone who wants to get in touch with you via social media is simple – you got addicted to it and want to overcome it. After all, social media is destructive, and you need to spend your time on something more important. Protect your privacy and get ready to disappear from the world.
Say Goodbye to Your Occupation
You can quit your job or take a long vacation just before you disappear completely. Do not do it too soon, or your absence would be too obvious to your employer and colleagues. This might help to make your head start easier.
Try to be Attentive to Every Detail
All your actions must be elaborate. If you rent your apartment, start to pay a few months ahead so the landlord won’t come and notice your absence too soon. You can also create a legend that you are going on a long vacation and give your neighbors false information. Your main goal is to save as much time as possible before people will start searching for you. Explore and analyze all your social contacts. Begin to be predictive and plan everything ten steps ahead. Try to find at least a couple of solutions to every situation that might happen.
Animals are Not Allowed
This might be one of the hardest decisions to make. Yes, you got it right – your pets can not come with you on this journey. First of all, this is dangerous both for you and for them. Your disappearing process can be hazardous. You never know what can happen. Do not risk your anonymity, and do not risk your animal’s life. The best you can do is take your pet to the shelter or let somebody adopt them. Make sure that your pet will be given as much love and care as they deserve. This will help you get over this easily if you know that your little best friend is in good hands. Anything is better than just to abandon your pet, right?
Step By Step Instructions To Vanish Quick
Your ID is a trace
You should collect all your documents in one place. Passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, university pass, social security card. Anything with your personal information and a photograph. You can keep it or destroy it. Either way, do not leave any trace. Maybe destroying it is a better idea for a fast act of disappearing. When you are in a rush, you might leave your IDs somewhere, or those documents might take too much space and do not have such. In the future, it can be found by someone, and your anonymity and new personality might be destroyed. Leave less paper trail if you want a successful head start.
Forget About your Cellular Communication
No Selfies
Relevant pictures of you can be the biggest problem. Try to delete and destroy all of your photographs and avoid taking new ones. The first and main reason is that your relevant photograph can be used to find you faster. Your picture with your name in the news will make your face recognizable, and you do not want that. The second reason is not so obvious, but believe us, it is true, this action will help your relatives and police to understand that your disappearance was intentional. It is helpful because, in this case, the authorities will search for you less hard. After all, it is kind of proof that you were not kidnapped or murdered. Your local law enforcement or private investigators (or investigator) might come looking for you but differently depending on that. It sounds strange but works.
Abandon Your Personal Vehicle
Yes, it is a hard pill to swallow, but disappearing with your car might be a bad idea, to say the least. New life requires desperate measures. The best you can probably do is sell your old car and keep the cash. You need the money anyway. Or if selling a car for cash is impossible or is not an option, you can abandon it in the suburbs and let strangers own it.
The next move is to buy a new car. Your new vehicle should not be flamboyant and special. In fact, it should be the most ordinary car ever, most likely used. Choose the car of inconspicuous colors, and you are ready to vanish.
Also do not forget that your new car must be reliable. Buy something like a Powertech 8k starter and keep it in the car. It will help you not to be stuck with a dead battery in the middle of nowhere. A portable solar charger will be a great help to you. A compact vehicle jump starter is an indispensable device for a ride like this. If you pack your bug-out bag properly, there should be no unsolvable problems on your way.
Additional Disappearing Advice
A New Life, a New You
Disguise or Die
This step is about completely changing your style and appearance. All your favorite clothes now in the past. Your hairstyle too. All your piercings and tattoos now must be taken off or hidden. Your body and your face must look completely different. Okay, you got it.
The first step is to visit a second hand and buy anything you would never normally wear. A good idea would be to choose pieces of clothes that you hate the most. Your favorite color was pink? Now you wear only black and white. Try to choose the opposite of your usual style, but keep in mind that you should not look strange or too bright. You do not need the attention. You just need to become a new person.
Next, think about your hair and face. You can dye your hair, shave it, or buy several wigs. There are many options, except your usual hairstyle. In terms of face changes, plastic surgery might be the best option, but it is quite expensive and time-consuming. No worries, simple shades, and hats can solve this problem and hide your face from everyone. You can even grow a beard. But do not use items from your old life. Try something you would never try before.
Last but not least, is your walking and talking manner. You should change it as well. Sometimes these things make you very recognizable even if you do not look the same anymore. You can practice and change your voice a bit, be an actor. In the end, you have no choice but to get used to every day acting until it becomes a real you. Stay in the shadows but act like an ordinary human being.
Bug-out Bag
Are you familiar with a “bug-out bag” thing? If you are preparing to disappear, you can not get away without it. A bug-out bag is essentials for a runaway. Food, clothes, technical supplies, medical kits, money, and many more items that can save your life or at least make it easier on the run. When you gather your bug-out bag think about everything from hygiene to building a shelter. Life can bring many surprises, so consider taking items you would take if you had to live a month in a forest without mobile service and people. You should be prepared, but do not be obsessed. If you start packing bags without reason, your family might start to worry. Do it carefully. Disappearance is all about acting normal. Keep it in mind. Though you probably will need a lot of things, they should all be useful. Do not take your record player or your Batman comic collection. Well, you can take your favorite survival books, but better save some space for ax and pocket fishing pole. And don’t forget about electronic surveillance to keep safe.
New Traveling Rules
Now you must travel just on your terms. For example, riding a survival bicycle is a great idea if you are tired of going on foot all the time. Public transport is okay, but it has cameras that are not so good for you unless your disguise is perfect. But never, hitchhike! You can not trust everyone. People can recognize you and get the police involved. Also, when you are just a passenger, the situation is not wholly under your control. And since you decided to disappear completely and never be found, you should keep every possible situation under your control. Remember that.
Get out!
After packing up your go-bag ( don’t forget about essential medical supplies, survival gadgets, portable solar chargers, and a set to pick locks ), you have one more job – you need to choose the most unexpected place where no one knows your name and go there as fast as possible. If there is a chance for you to go to another country without an ID, you should go for it. For example, if you are from the United States, try to go south. Travel as far as you possibly can. When choosing a town for yourself, you must be sure that there are no family members or friends there, even if those are old friends of yours and you saw them a very long time ago. If the government is searching for you, those people might be informed about you missing. Choose a place where nobody knows your face.
Another important point. This place should be a place that you never dreamed of or talked about. For example, if you always wanted to go to Paris, do not escape to Paris. This is pretty easy. Do not think about this place as a dream town or the most terrible place. This must be safe for you, and that is the only important criterion.
Confuse Everyone
The false leads could be a fun thing to do at this point. If you can make it entertaining, go for it. The more you are involved, the more tricky and confusing this would be for police officers. You can leave some travel maps and google history of search. Research cities and places that would be the opposite of the place you are going to. This will buy you some time for sure and time is everything.
Choose your destination carefully since you can be stuck there for some time. You can settle somewhere in the woods or a big town among millions of people. Remember always to use a fake name and pretend to be someone else. Always leave false trails and use a different name every time, not just a short form of your old one.
Kill Your Old Identity
To disappear from your hometown is not the hardest part. For some people, the hardest part is to become a completely different person in people’s minds. You must change your own mind, change your manners, change your hobbies. Change everything. You have to leave behind everything connected to your old self. A fresh start is a fresh start. A new name, a new face, a new history.
Rewrite your own biography
There are several ordinary questions people usually ask. You need to learn to answer them confidently and not running away with a panic attack. The example of questions:
- Where are you from?
- What is your middle name?
- What did you do before?
- Where is your family?
- What is your mother’s name?
- What kind of food do you usually eat?
- Who is your favorite writer?
- What is your favorite animal?
- Your favorite musician or a band?
- What school did you go to?
- When is your birthday?
- Do you have a brother or sister? What are their names?
- Do you have a husband or wife?
- What is your zodiac sign?
Every answer must be a lie. Every piece of information about yourself that you give to people must be different from your real stuff. And also, learn to lie carefully so you won’t be confused by your lying. Create a new history of yourself and believe in it. Tell everyone the same things. And remember that if you want to make friends, you have only one job – do not reveal any true info about yourself. Be careful while drinking in a bar with someone else. You have no right to fail now. Make sure you use your new name with everyone you meet, and everywhere you go. If you are not sure, you can handle the task – making new friends is a bad idea.
Going Back to old Interests After Some Time
No, this is a trap. You should get rid of everything that connects you with the past. Even if it looks innocent to you, it might turn dangerous and expose you. Make new habits, do anything but look back.
Old Friends and Family
Remember one simple thing – people from your past are no longer a part of your life. Get rid of everything that might force you to reach them and get in touch. Forget the Facebook, Twitter, and email addresses of your best friend. Forget the phone number of your mother. It was a hard decision to disappear and never went back, and it was made because of serious reasons. You can not go back. Now you have a new life and a new identity. People from the past are nobody now. Though sometimes you will have the strongest urge to get in touch with them, it will get better and easier later.
Addiction to Fame
This is a tricky one. If you used to be a famous and successful person in your old life, it could be hard for you to live an ordinary life without attention. Even for an adult, it could be a hard pill to swallow. But you should understand how dangerous it might be. Do not try to get your old fame back, though you still can be successful in something new—Ditch’s old hobbies and interests. Do anything you never associated yourself with. And do not forget that you are another person now with a new life, maybe this can bring you even more cash.
The More you Move, the Better
Going to other places from time to time is a good idea if you want to disappear and confuse the government. Stay no longer than six months in the same place. Form this pattern of always being on the run. When you travel, use a different name every time, so people will never really know whom they are searching for exactly. You might want to move far away or to settle in a town somewhere near. The more you move, the harder it gets to catch you. You are going to need a lot of fake names and make sure you have enough money. Every journey to somewhere else requires a serious plan made by careful thought and a lot of cash. Remember to move without leaving any traces.
What Is Next?
Of course, this article is not enough information to walk away and never be found, but this content must help you understand what topics you have to research further. Disappearing is serious. Disappearing is tricky and complicated. The most important preparation is education. You need to feel confident about everything you do and have no questions about disappearing right before you will walk out the door. Keep in mind that you are going to need plenty of time. Do your research carefully, erase your digital footprint. Purchase all useful tools for your bug-out bag ahead, but not all at once. And in the end, be ready to start a brand new life and say goodbye to your old one because it is a hard decision, and it could be hard to be mentally prepared for it. This is how you disappear completely and never come back!
FAQs
How to disappear legally?
Several agencies and government authorities can help you move to another place, change your name and identity, and anything else you need. You can change your name and appearance by yourself. This is completely legal. But if there is a serious threat to your life, you might want to find someone or some organization that can help. In this article, everything is quite legal so that you can follow these pieces of advice. Disappearing is legal unless you are a criminal and committed a bad crime.
Where is the best place to disappear completely?
In the US, the best way is to go south. Some big city like New York might be a good idea too. But it is always better to move to an undeveloped country where you can work without a pile of different documents. And of course, you should disappear to a place without people that know you. These people can ruin your anonymity even if you think that they are not a problem.
Is it possible to disappear and start a new life?
Yes, it is. In this article, you can find the best ways to do it. Also, there are plenty of stories about real people and characters who managed to start a new life with a new name, and nobody knows their real personalities and where they came from. If your intention is serious, everything can be possible. Do not treat disappearing like a joke. This is a serious and dangerous act you must be prepared for. Once you are in, you can not go back.
How do I go off the grid and disappear?
There is no short answer on “How to disappear?” really. You can not disappear just in a second. It might even take you years to prepare. In this article, you will find step by step instructions on how to disappear. Be ready to get rid of everything that connected you with your old life. Start distancing from your family, children, friends. You are going to need a lot of cash, and you should forget about your credit cards. You must cancel your mobile phone plan and forget about your old phone in general, along with credit cards. Delete your accounts from social media. Your digital footprint must disappear, as well. Create a new name, a new identity. Save as much money as you can, take only cash. Be prepared.
