How to Disappear Without a Trace – For Good!

Any good prepper must be prepared for any imaginable situation. In a post-SHTF scenario particularly in a WROL situation, you may find it necessary to lie low.

When anarchy ensues, you cannot turn to the authorities for protection and will have to rely on yourself. Guilty or not, if you want to live, you’re going to have to disappear completely and go off the radar – until things start to calm down at least.

boy hiding from someone

As far-fetched as this scenario sounds, it’s better to be prepared if it happens to you. With proper evasion skills, you can outsmart those pursuing you by having a well-thought plan and an exit strategy in case you come face-to-face with them.

In a Nutshell

Some of the most important things you should do to disappear would be to sell most of your possessions, get a new phone, delete all your online accounts, use a PO box, find a remote piece of land to move to, and even legally change your name.

Now let’s look into the how in detail…

Assess Who You are Running From

Before we do anything else, we must get really clear on who it is that we are running from. Who you are running from is very likely based on why you are running, and different people can bring varying levels of resources to bear in tracking you down.

Remember, other parties who are interested in your life get a vote and whether or not you just get to disappear into the wild blue yonder and start over.

Some folks you might be running from for various reasons:

  • Friends and family
  • Business associates
  • Private investigators
  • Crime groups or thugs with whom they’d been involved with
  • Government or law enforcement officials

Note: we do NOT recommend ever running from the law.

Generally, the farther down that list you go, the more resources the interested party can bring to bear in order to locate you.

While it is true that wealthy friends, family or business associates who have a lot at stake with you in regards to a relationship or prior dealings might be able to pull out all the stops when it comes to tracking you down, they generally will not have a massive pool of agents and technologies to locate you.

Without the bottomless pool of resources available, they may eventually decide that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze and give up the search.

Conversely, if you are wanted by high-level law enforcement agencies, you can be assured that they will leave, very literally, no stone unturned in their search for you until the case has gone well and truly cold, and even then there will always be someone listening, watching and looking for any trace of you to pop up on their screens.

Flushing all Aspects of Your Old Life

This is the crux of properly disappearing: You must completely discard every facet of your old life if you really want to get away. Your name, your social contacts, your favorite things like activities, restaurants, hobbies and so forth.

Addresses, email accounts, P.O. boxes, memberships and more. Your fingerprints, your face, and your very DNA can be used to positively identify you or point the way to your current location!

You cannot change everything about your identity that might be used against you, but every single thing about you that can be scrubbed must be scrubbed if you want to stand a chance.

As you would probably guess, this is growing increasingly difficult in our modern age. Every interaction is collated. Every piece of data about a person sticks. Every post, every purchase, every login is databased and recorded forever.

This compiled profile, the very stuff that makes you you in the eyes of other people and particularly interested organizations, is all accessible with little effort and can be turned against you in the form of a sprawling, cyclopion surveillance net that can access and reference every interaction, every login and every purchase of like kind to start narrowing down your trail or your current location.

Everything you do that is nominally associated with your typical behavior is a “ping” on the relentless sonar of your pursuers. A single ping could be all it takes to narrow down your location and see you caught. The first step to dropping off this sonar screen is to stop pinging it to begin with.

Accordingly, the next step is to generate new, different pings to camouflage you among the other countless multitudes of society.

You must be prepared to operate and live as a completely new identity, a new person. Nothing else can ensure initial success and even then it is anything but certain. 

The Great Debate: Should You Fade Away or Vanish?

On this topic, one of the longest running debates about best practices is whether or not you should disappear overnight (vanish) or slowly, sneakily sort of fade away from notice among all the people in your life and social circle.

Both arguably have advantages but as always what is best for you is dependent on your personal situation. Context is everything.

This also assumes that you have a choice in the matter at all. You might have 5 minutes notice, if that, that trouble is coming down the turnpike and you have to drop literally everything and dash out the door on the run.

In Japan, there are actual companies who help people vanish every year:

Vanishing without a trace | Undercover Asia | Full Episode

So assuming you don’t have to sprint to the car and start driving, which method is best for you? 

Vanishing Pros and Cons

Vanishing into thin air, or rather suddenly terminating all of your typical interactions with friends, family, job, legal obligations and so forth, will be noticed immediately and provoke a strong, sudden response from all interested parties.

If you are not otherwise wanted by the law this will still virtually guarantee investigation by law enforcement, either on suspicion of foul play or from you being assigned the status of missing person.

Significant others, parents, siblings and close friends will agitate constantly for law enforcement assistance.

On the other hand, when you are there one day and gone the next it does not allow any time for suspicion to grow among those who might miss you.

If you are not already wanted for some crime or transgressing against criminal business partners, however, this response is likely to be lackluster and constrained to a relatively narrow area: People go missing or disappear from “prior” lives all the time and for all kinds of reasons in America and very, very few are ever located.

However, making a blunder on your initial getaway is quite literally sending your trail for figurative bloodhounds, and will incur a disproportionately energetic effort to follow it.

If you were going to attempt the overnight vanishing act you must put as much distance between yourself and your former location as possible as quickly as possible with no mistakes.

Done correctly, to pursuers it will seem very much like you literally disappeared.

Fade Away Pros and Cons

Assuming you don’t have a hard deadline or imminent threat breathing down your neck, you can choose to fade away instead of disappearing all at once.

Procedurally, this is where you slowly wind down relationships, engagements and other factors of your life at a deliberate pace.

People do this all the time because of changing feelings, lifestyle factors and more so it is unlikely to raise alarm among people who are not heavily invested or otherwise interested in you.

This is a method where you will give an extended notice of resignation at work or just notice of an upcoming vacation, you stop talking to friends and family as much, citing workload or any other excuse, and slowly stop going around to places where you are a regular or otherwise frequent.

Because your absence is made less dramatic, it is less likely to provoke a strong immediate response.

People will simply look up one day and say, “Hey, you know I haven’t talked to Joe in a while. Maybe we should check on him.” This is usually more than enough time to implement several components of your escape plan and new identity.

It must be noted that this technique will have the opposite effect on the people you are closest with.

If you have a good relationship with your parents, siblings, significant other, or just close friends, the first sign to them that something bad is in the pipe will be your withdrawing from typical contact.

In that case, it might be best to employ a decoy or some cover for an extended absence immediately prior to you enacting your plan. We will talk more about both later on in this article.

Will Anyone Know What You are Doing?

Another age old question regarding “disappearing” yourself is whether or not anyone will know what you are doing and why. Once again, there are some hard and fast rules but there is no true answer, as everybody has a different context.

Generally speaking, if you are on the run from the law, creditors who will not take “I’m sorry” for an an answer or any other individual or group that is willing and able to shake down people in your immediate social sphere, you’ll have a much greater chance of success if you don’t tell anybody what you are doing.

Consider that what people don’t know cannot be extorted out of them, even by force, whereas anything they do know is a potential gold mine of information for your pursuers.

However, if you do want to let people know what you are doing with the intention that you can maintain some connections with your past life while shedding other parts, you must know that they will remain a constant liability.

People who are trying to find “marks” that have gone missing will very typically monitor avenues of communication between the missing person and their known relations looking for a lead. 

It should go without saying that anybody you plan on informing about your disappearing act must already have the highest possible level of trust with you for you to even consider it. Just because someone is family does not mean you can trust them in this way.

If you are fortunate enough to have a truly close confidant they might be able to help you further your plan by coordinating with you to throw pursuers off your trail or even provide a false account of meeting or talking with you locally when, in fact, you have already been long gone.

Ties that Bind: Cutting Major Connections to Your Identity

The first step in going dark and walking away from your old life is severing all major connections to it.

As mentioned, these connections are pervasive, persistent and can easily be leveraged by those who would locate you into discerning your current location.

Read the following list to get the inside scoop on how these typical facets of modern life can betray you and what, if anything, you can do about it.

Banking

A bank account, be it traditional or one of the new ePayment varieties as typified by PayPal, is one of the most difficult resources to access discreetly, and one that you’ll either have to be willing to let go of entirely, however much money it contains, or empty ahead of time so you have all of your assets available as paper money.

Accessing these accounts in any way, from online logins to check cashing to phone inquiries to in person withdrawals, will subject you to considerable scrutiny as one of the first interactions that law enforcement or other interested parties can check to ascertain your activity or your whereabouts. 

You don’t have to go through the motions of shutting down your account, you just need to ensure you have cash on hand when you need it, and you’re going to need plenty since you’re about to start living a purely cash based existence for a while.

SocMed

Social media, or “SocMed” in tracker and investigator industry parlance, is another facet of modern life that is seemingly inseparable from our day to day existence.

More than most things, every, single interaction on these time vampire sites, including what ads you look at and for how long, is ruthlessly tracked and scrutinized internally for the sole process of separating you from even more of your money.

It should go without saying that they will cooperate eagerly with law enforcement to provide them with all of your data that they have recorded.

This means no checking in, no using messenger systems, no liking, no commenting, no changing passwords, personal information, anything.

Even the most passing interaction with these data mining organizations could result in an IP hit that will lead pursuers straight to you.

Even worse, it is difficult to calculate just how far the tentacles of social media reach into other apps, devices and websites. This means that a login to an unrelated website or opening of a seemingly unrelated app could have the same effect. 

Should you delete your social media prior to running for it? It is hard to say whether or not it will help at all considering how much redundant backing up there is of your data.

Generally, I would advise you to delete your social media if you want to give the impression that you have simply stepped away from your life versus giving the idea that there has been foul play. If you are trying to cultivate the latter, then definitely leave it up.

Emails, Website/App Accounts, etc.

The electronic encumbrances to our mission continue in the form of emails, website accounts, app logins and so forth.

Although it is nice to think that that one email account you never use couldn’t possibly be associated with you since you have had it for so long and only use it for one or two oddball websites, you’d be wrong.

Savvy investigators, even private ones, can easily discover various email addresses and other account information that can link website and app activity to you and once they have done, so it is only a matter of time until they can unravel your plan and discern your location if you continue to make use of them or any websites connected to them.

I hope I have impressed upon you by now that you must completely, totally abandon every trace of your former life if you want to make a clean getaway and a clean start, but particularly you must abandon all elements of your former online presence and activity.

While it is true that there are some tricks like torrenting and the use of VPNs that can help obfuscate where you are logging in from or even disguise your online presence, once pursuers know where to look on the internet to discern your activity, they will be halfway towards locating you whatever else you do.

Favorite Restaurants, Shops, etc.

Favorites and preferences are one element of our personality that hurt the most to give up, but give them up we must if we want to escape our old lives.

This is because favorites and preferences often turn habitual, and anything that is habitual will form a pattern- patterns are easy to recognize.

If you frequent a particular chain of restaurants, coffee shops or anything else, stop doing that immediately, both while you are on the run and after you have settled into your new life elsewhere.

If you regularly purchase goods at particular stores, or purchase particular goods often from anywhere, you’ll need to lay off for a time.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that making a purchase in cash alone at one of your frequented “watering holes” is enough to disguise it from those who might be looking for it.

For instance, if you always get a certain kind of drink at Starbucks you might decide it is okay to keep doing the same thing since millions of people visit Starbucks every single day. You are just a customer, right?

But there are only a few Starbucks in the place you have fled to and if people who are pursuing you think to look there or are already close on your trail they might wait for you to pop up for your daily dose of sugary caffeine and intercept you at any one of them.

Vehicles

Vehicles are one element of life that is difficult to imagine going without, and it is true that you might well still require a set of wheels to make your escape and begin your new life.

However, your current vehicle is very likely to be more of a liability than an asset under the circumstances.

As you know, vehicles have a unique VIN number which identifies it and links it to you. Same thing with their license plates.

That is no good, so you’ll either need to ditch the vehicle or get rid of it and if you want to keep making use of automobile capability surreptitiously acquire a new one that is not linked to you.

You might consider simply walking away from your vehicle and leaving it in your driveway or the parking lot, but it is possible to easily get rid of a vehicle entirely by leaving it in a bad part of a bad town with the keys in it.

The criminal element will take care of the rest, although you should know that there exists formal and informal agreements in certain criminal enterprises between law enforcement for information on just such an occasion.

You might consider destroying the vehicle utterly via burning, burying or sinking it in a large body of water but doing so discreetly is often challenging and if the vehicle is discovered under such circumstances it is likely to intensify the efforts of pursuers owing to the implications of foul play against you.

Identifying Physiological Characteristics

There are certain characteristics innate to your being that investigators, particularly law enforcement, can use to positively identify you or place you as being present in a given location within a general time frame.

Fingerprints are probably the most well known, but modern technology has given rise to the proliferation of facial recognition scanners and cameras that might be able to pick you out of a crowd with some reliability.

Most insidious, your very DNA is cataloged for cross reference through any number of avenues, but most notably today is the rise in popularity of fantastically inaccurate ancestry and genealogy tracing services, little more than widespread DNA clearing houses accessible by law enforcement. 

Your family, friends and creditors likely do not have the training, technology or access to resources in order to positively locate and identify your fingerprints, hair follicles or other DNA sources but law enforcement will, and depending on the level of “heat” that is after you this could prove to be a pervasive and challenging spoor to eliminate.

The discarded straw from the drink you purchased with cash at an out of the way gas station could conceivably betray you, for the fingerprints you leave on a glass at a cantina.

Making a Clean Getaway vs. Decoying Pursuers

Another point of contention on the subject of self-disappearance is whether or not one should attempt to actively decoy or subvert the efforts of those who would try to locate you.

Proponents for decoying point to historical and anecdotal evidence that deception, dissuasion and generally sending pursuers on a wild goose chase is very likely to tire them out, waste resources and buy you time to operate more openly before a fix on your location is found or your trail is picked up.

Detractors state the opposite, naturally, that any effort to distract or otherwise flummox pursuers that is not executed with a high degree of fidelity is likely to have the the reverse and unintended effect, showing that you are trying to run and disappear with purpose and potentially even supplying those interested parties with information they can use to close the net around you.

Ultimately, this choice is up to you and you’ll have to face the consequences. In the author’s opinion, a few choice references or mentions strategically placed or dropped in conversation with various people in your social circle could prove a tempting enough false lead to get pursuers heading down the wrong path. 

For instance, mentioning to a neighbor or coworker offhandedly that you have been seriously considering a religious sabbatical here or there could be enough to diffuse major concerns and thus buy you time.

Mentioning to friends or family that you are working toward an extended vacation in a remote part of the country or world in the near future is another worthwhile tack. Supplement this with a few personal effects left strategically on computers or paper documents that will be found among your possessions can effectively sell the ruse.

Mode of Travel Matters

When the time comes to make your exit, how you choose to travel will matter. Taking any public transportation, be it a subway, train, interstate bus or airline will subject you to a disproportionate level of scrutiny and data “checkpointing” all along the way.

In the absence of a ready-made alternate set of IDs being in your possession, this is a non-starter as any pursuers will be able to pick up your trail at least to your intermediate destination easily and quickly.

So what is an escape artist to do, then? As mentioned, acquiring a vehicle via “pink slip” and cashy money transaction is probably the best way, but your vehicle should be something that does not stick out and is also a later model vehicle so you can ensure it will be devoid of GPS transceivers and other electronic trickery that authorities or interested parties can use to locate you.

Don’t forget that you must ditch your existing phone for a sanitized burner phone or this will be for naught.

Carpooling, or hitchhiking, is one viable method for discreetly crossing from state to state, but if under the circumstances it is likely there will be a major press release on your disappearance this could easily jog the memory of the person you rode with, seeing them go to authorities with information.

Lastly, you might consider setting off on foot but this is extremely slow, and going state to state will be an arduous and risky task, to say nothing of traveling into another country on foot. 

Ultimately, the best mode of travel for you will depend on what resources you can bring to bear on covering your tracks and how far away your destination is. the closer your destination the more likely it is that you can rely on slower or less traditional means of conveyance, increasing the chances that you can travel undetected and unnoticed.

Fending Off Social Inquiries

When settling into a new life in a new place, it is only natural that you’ll begin to form new relationships, even if they are only that of mutual acquaintances or employer and employee.

A common mistake made by people who are trying to disappear is keeping everyone around them at a distance at all times, both physically and emotionally.

The creepy loner always lurking in the background or at an adjacent table will quickly attract attention and not the good kind. This can have the unintended effect of raising your profile, rather than lowering it.

Depend on a few interested parties actually beginning to investigate who you are and where you’re from, potentially with disastrous results.

A far better solution is to be reasonably chummy with people in your new life, or at least pleasant, as this way lies disarmament of any suspicion. As they say, the best way to hide a zebra is among other zebras.

The trick is fully embracing and living your new identity, and part of that means having a well-rehearsed and fully fleshed out backstory that you can draw from.

Naturally, this will mean you are telling lies by the score, but these lies must be so second-nature, so rehearsed and practiced that they might as well be real for you.

This could be anything from questions like where you grew up, where you lived before you moved into the area, family and friends, interests and so forth. Stumbling, stuttering or stonewalling because you don’t want to or cannot answer them is a great way to raise your profile and also raise suspicions of the people you are talking to.

By the same token, don’t gush, go on at length or ingratiate yourself too much as this will make you “stickier” in people’s minds and could similarly attract the wrong kind of attention.

This is a balancing act, and one you will have to adjust on the fly as you take the read of the room against your current situation. passing pleasantries with a stranger you are unlikely to ever see again or one thing, but revealing too much or painting yourself into a corner with clumsy lies among your new coworkers or roommates has potentially greater consequences.

Other Tips, Tricks and Tactics

The following section contains many tactics, techniques, tips, tricks procedures and plans to help you give your old life, and the people looking for you, the slip.

You should make use of any or all of them that you can with the understanding that not all of them are suitable for every event and every circumstance. In the end, it is best to remain light, flexible and adaptable to changing situations.

Leave town

One of the most obvious things you must do to disappear is to leave town. It is better if you don’t stay in any one place for too long. In moving from one town to the next, you must be unpredictable in your choices so they won’t be able to anticipate your next move.

Don’t go to places where you know someone or that have special meaning to you. If your pursuers know or can access info about you, they’ll find you.

Get a map

When moving to a new town, you must familiarize yourself with its roads and alleys. You must have an escape route in case you have to make a quick getaway.

The same goes with entering establishments. Know where the entry and exit points, especially the emergency exits. You always need to prepare an escape plan if you don’t want to get caught.

Get rid of everything

When trying to remove all traces of yourself, it is crucial that you get rid of all your belongings that can provide information about you. These include photographs, journals, IDs, etc. Anything with your picture on it can be distributed if found by your pursuers so they can locate you faster. Documents that provide private information about you can give them a clue as to your whereabouts.

Change your identity

If you want to disappear completely, then you must get rid of the old you and get yourself a new identity.

You’ll have to change your name, background, and all the pertinent details about yourself. It’s hard, but if you don’t want to get caught, you have to start with a clean slate.

There are ways to acquire all the necessary documentation to support your assertions if you know where to look.

Change your appearance.

If the opposition knows what you look like, then you better make some changes. You can dye your hair to a different color and change your hairstyle completely.

Change your wardrobe to keep your new look from resembling your old self. In changing your look, blend in instead of standing out. Change your look when you go from one town to the next to make it harder for them to follow you.

Always use cash

Never use your credit card or ATM card in doing any transactions unless the accounts, cards and devices associated with such are “clean.”. The instant you use one, you are foolishly giving away your location as these cards can be traced. Lose the plastic and always pay with cash. And bring plenty of it.

Blend in

When moving into a new town, do not attract attention to yourself by acting suspicious. If you act all anxious and become easily startled, people might know that something’s up and they’ll most likely remember you. Keep a low profile and do not do anything that might arouse suspicion.

Remember, the key to being unnoticeable is to blend in to your surroundings. Don’t dress like some nerd from the 5.11 catalog, you won’t fool anyone.

If you are in a place with a foreign culture dress like the other expats dress, not like a tourist- unless you are trying to blend in with tourists!

There’s this other article on 50 ways to become a grey man that you may want to check.

Fake your own death

I know that this seems straight out of a movie, but if you’re really desperate to put an end to the chase, this is an option for WROL (without the rule of law) situations.

This is going to take a lot of planning and cunning on your part to pull this off. Keep in mind though your family and friends will suffer. But this way, you will secure your protection and your family’s as well.

Ditch your car

When fleeing, don’t use your own car under any circumstances. If they are able to get a hold of your personal information, such as your car license, they will be able to track you down no matter the distance you’ve put between you and the search party.

Let the air out of one tire so that no one will suspect that you left your car intentionally. And leave it someplace that it will not easily be found.

Be careful about taxis.

If you don’t want to give away your next location, then don’t use taxi service. Taxi drivers and dispatchers usually have a record of their passenger’s pick-up and drop-off points.

And more often than not, cab drivers have a good memory of their passengers. And if you seem troubled or rushed, they will be more likely to remember you when asked.

Buying another car

In getting another car, find yourself a dealer selling second-hand cars. Never mind that they look beat-up as long as they are still in good running condition.

These dealers will accept cash as payment and will not ask you to provide personal information in return.  Do not leave a record of your purchase. Use a false name if you can get away with it.

Consider a motorcycle.

You might want to consider using a motorcycle as a means of going around. It’s more mobile than your average car and will be a lot cheaper to buy.

And when you find yourself in hot pursuit, you’ll be more likely to escape even with traffic and roadblocks in front of you.

Hide some emergency clothes and supplies.

If somehow your whereabouts have been discovered and you are unable to get your belongings in your rush to escape, it is always a good idea to stash up on some emergency supplies somewhere.

Choose a spot you can go to undetected where you can pick it up as you move on to your next town.

Use public transportation

If you don’t want to run the risk of getting pulled over, then travel by bus instead.

Do your best to blend in with the other passengers. Appear unconcerned with what is going on around you but remain on the alert.

Learn some bushcraft skills

If you choose to live your days in the woods and away from civilization, then you should learn bushcraft skills for you to make it in the wild. When your supplies run out, these skills will keep from dying of hunger or thirst as well as help you in building your own shelter.

Don’t leave any traces of yourself

If you want to disappear, then you better not leave any article of clothing, used dental floss, or strand of hair. It may sound extreme, but if you are hiding from powerful enemies, you definitely won’t want them to get anything with your DNA on it.

Don’t let anyone get a hold of your DNA.

This means that putting saliva on your mail is out of the question. Keeping correspondence is a big no-no but if you must, then do it anonymously.

If they somehow are able to intercept your letters, then finding your DNA or your fingerprints is the confirmation they will need. Remember to use gloves when handling paper.

There is even now a non-zero chance that someone already has your DNA profile either on file or they have ready access to it, but you should not do anything to make their job any easier.

Wipe everything in your domicile before departing.

As paranoid as it sounds, wiping every surface you come in contact with is a smart move. Make it a habit to wipe everything to make certain you leave no fingerprints behind.

Rubbing alcohol wipes remove the natural oils in your fingerprints. Sounds laborious, but you should always be one step ahead of them. When checking out of a motel, always ask the management to have your room cleaned thoroughly.

Keep yourself fit.

When bad luck hits you and you are spotted by your pursuers, you may have to flee on foot to escape them. You won’t outrun them if you don’t keep yourself in good shape.

Exercise regularly, and stick to a healthy diet as much as possible. To learn more about survival fitness, read Dan Sullivan’s course on the topic.

Learn first-aid.

In going to the hospital for treatment, they will ask you to supply personal information and will obtain a DNA sample from you.

For minor wounds and injuries, you should learn how to treat yourself on your own. As long as it’s not serious or life-threatening, avoid checking into a hospital.

Avoid being caught on camera.

Almost every establishment now has safety cameras installed. This means buying groceries or checking into a motel will leave a trail if you are caught on video.

Pay attention to where the cameras are placed so whenever you enter a shop, you can prevent your face from being seen. Try to keep your head down and focus on spots where you know cameras are not mounted.

Get a menial job.

Unless you’re extremely rich, your savings will eventually run out. Like it or not, you will have to get yourself a job. This can be tricky if you want to hide your true identity.

A good start would be to apply for a minimum wage job that pays cash does not require your home address and identification such as your Social Security number.

Living in the desert.

If you choose to hide in the desert, know that life will be difficult. You will have limited access to water, food, the roads, and not to mention will deal with the scorching heat.

But if other people are able to survive in the desert, then so can you. People usually live in a mobile trailer with a desert-colored tarp to conceal it from any passing aircraft.

Camp in the woods.

In setting up camp, choose a site that is secluded and can conceal you from both aerial and ground view. You should have reasonable access to water and game if your stocked supplies run out.

This can be a good temporary living situation until you’ve settled on your next location. Map out alternate routes to get to and from your camp to water and other locations.

Know when to stop running and hide.

When you have a helicopter hot on your tail, you will easily give yourself away if you are continuously in motion. Find a bush or tree for a safe spot to hide. Duck under a bridge or overpass if available.

Mask body heat detection by burying yourself in mud or leaves. If they see you stop, instead of hiding, you will have to instead reverse direction or otherwise try to confuse your trail.

Get them off your trail.

If they are tracking you down, change your direction once in awhile to break the trail. This may consist of veering away from your path, climbing trees, crisscrossing a stream several times, use branches to erase your tracks, or walking backwards.

Do anything that will confuse them and the dogs following your scent. Even if you don’t think you are being followed, it’s better to be on the safe side.

Learn self-defense.

In the event that you are caught, you can buy yourself some time by using defensive strategies.

They may also be combat-ready but if you are able to throw them down with a move or two, a few seconds may be all you need to make a quick escape. You have then been given another day to live.

Final Words

It is possible for people on the run to live their days safely despite the challenges it will undoubtedly require. All it takes is some planning, creativity, and foresight to pull this off.

You need to be always one step ahead of your pursuers and this includes willingness to pack up and relocate if your current place becomes unfit or unsafe for living.

All of these techniques may seem daunting, but you never know what will happen when thing start to go sideways. Hopefully, you won’t need to use them at all but at least you’ll know what to do if the situation arises.

With this in mind, can you think of other ways you can disappear completely? Comment in the section below.

child hiding

last updated 08/25/2021

5 thoughts on “How to Disappear Without a Trace – For Good!”

  1. Are you kidding? Flush clothes down the toliet? That is the dumbest crap I have read in a how to disappear. You should probably quit writting. Leave it to people who actually know what they are talking about. Most of the stuff you mentiom is tv and movie based fiction that doesnt work in the real world. Work at a fast food job, dumb suggestion as they verify who you are kudt as much as working in a career. Day labor work is a smarter approach. My god, hide if a helicopter is after you, Really? Have you ever heard of IR or FLIR? Police helicopters run IR when tracking a fugitive….. dont quit your day job.

  2. The most of your article is pure bunk. The only way to completely disappear is to get clear and go to ground in a very remote area. Live off the land, and have no interaction with anyone. As for the information on killing an attack trained dog, the least of your worries are disposing of the body, assuming you are able to kill it. If you manage that, the blood trail you leave will give you away. I have worked with service dogs in the past, and they are fast and can and will hurt you badly. I agree that with IR or FLIR your chances of evading a chopper are nil. Your scenario is fine for the Hollywood crowd that think you can hand hold a Ma Deuce when firing it, but total crap in the real world.

  3. Well, i thought there were sum good points, flatening ur car tire, a cache, ditching ur family (i mite try this just to ditch my girlfriend) and id let my cell ph go to detroit on a greyhound, and let em chase it around,,,,lol,

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