The more cash you have the better off you will be, no matter which route you choose to disappear. Even hitchhikers and campers need money for food and personal items. Those using more conventional means to escape will need money for hotel rooms, gas, and so on.

Plain old greenbacks are usually preferable to checks or credit cards. Personal checks leave a paper trail and are increasingly viewed with distrust. Credit cards leave a paper trail as well; also, if you are fleeing an abusive or unfaithful spouse whose name is on the account, he or she can easily cancel the card. My advice is to get cash advances on your cards and then forget them.

There is a scenario in which using credit or debit cards may prove to your advantage in misleading potential pursuers. I call this strategy the “going from Atlanta to New York by way of Seattle route.” Let’s say you are fleeing Dixie for the Big Apple. Instead of a straight path, you go the scenic route, driving well out of your way to the west, say, to Seattle. On the way you make liberal use of your credit cards, establishing a clear trail for investigators to follow to the West Coast. Upon arriving in Seattle, you apply for a checking and savings account at a local bank using a bogus address. You may also fill out a rent application with any apartment complex or other rental property. You then ditch the card and drive to your real destination back east, using only cash to pay for purchases.

If you are using public transportation, you can establish a paper trail in a similar fashion by making purchases along the way at bus or train stops, or, if traveling by air, by charging items in the airport shops. The idea is to create a paper trail that leads any investigators in a completely wrong direction. While they are trying to find you in a city thousands of miles away from where you are, you kick back and laugh your ass off.

The one drawback to using cash is the possibility of being robbed or just losing it. Many people like to use traveler’s checks, which are guaranteed against loss or theft.

This is generally safe, but some new-identity experts caution that it can create a paper trail. To minimize this possibility, I advise buying the checks at several different financial institutions as far apart as possible, buying as small a quantity as possible at each one. You will need to show identification to buy traveler’s checks. (I did not say it had to be legitimate ID.)

Another alternative is using money orders. Many merchants are hesitant about accepting these. I suggest purchasing U.S. Postal Service money orders for amounts of $100 or less. As with the traveler’s checks, buy from as many different post offices as possible. Any local post office in the country will cash one of these. Make it out to yourself, and, again, be prepared to show some ID. If this concerns you, then read the section on false identification coming up later.

Since money can often buy them, the next subjects we should logically consider are friends, family, and confederates.

KEEPING IN TOUCH

People can be your greatest assets or your biggest headaches, depending on a number of factors. A supportive and trustworthy person or persons can be of enormous help to you during the planning phase as well as the actual disappearance. On the other hand, they are potential security risks, especially if they know where you can be found. You must weigh the advantages against the risks when determining whether to let anyone know what you have planned.

When I took a powder, the only person I informed was my older, ex-hippy brother, who was totally cool about the whole thing. He kept my secret and told snoops who called him that I was missing and presumed dead in New York City. This discouraged their investigative efforts greatly. Of course, he knew I was alive and well and not anywhere near New York (or was I?).

Before deciding to tell anyone your plans, you need to do some hard thinking. Can you endure being away from people their investigative efforts greatly. Of course, he knew I was alive and well and not anywhere near New York (or was I?).

Before deciding to tell anyone your plans, you need to do some hard thinking. Can you endure being away from people you care about and knowing they are probably worried about you? You have to weigh your desire to keep in touch with family or friends against the possibility that everyone will find out your plans.

Are there any scenarios you can imagine (within reason) where you will need to contact an acquaintance? Maybe there is a sick relative whose situation is tenuous, and you want to keep updated on this person. Perhaps you are leaving children in someone else’s care while you hide from a spouse who has threatened to kill you. You will want to know that they are okay. There may be legal or financial affairs you need to keep abreast of. This information could be critical to knowing when it is safe to resurface.

For many people, separating themselves from family and friends may be traumatic, especially if they know their disappearance may last several months or more. Others are glad to say good riddance to “those bastards.” This is a choice you must make for yourself. In general, it is best to tell no one, unless you feel you can trust the person completely.

Sally and Unlucky Larry chose to remain completely undercover. It was especially hard on Sally, but the counselors at the shelter persuaded her that it was for the best. They were right. Jack still kept discreet contact with old friends but told no one where his truck was. No one.

There is a way to maintain contact with acquaintances that is very secure and will allow you to protect your privacy. That is by using a mail drop.

Sending and Receiving Mail

There is virtually nothing more useful to seekers of privacy than a mail forwarding service, known commonly as a “mail drop.” These have proliferated in recent years, and virtually every community in the United States has one in town or nearby (including the giant metropolis of Moonville, South Carolina). Mailboxes Etc. is the most common one, with more than 3,000 locations from coast to coast.

Following are some of the advantages mail drops offer:

• They will allow you to receive mail without anyone knowing your location. You can even throw people off the trail with mail drops, causing them to think you are somewhere other than where you really are.
• You can deal with creditors while keeping them at bay. This can be invaluable to those who are trying to pay off a vehicle or other mortgaged item and are afraid the repo man will come after them if the bank finds out where they are. (Working Man Jack used mail drops to send payments to his finance company without their discovering where he was.)
• Mail drops usually offer numerous services besides mail forwarding, including private mailbox rental. They often ship and receive packages for UPS and Federal Express. They also offer money orders, low-cost photocopying, stationary and office supplies, desktop publishing, and 24-hour access to your mailbox.

Mail drops offer the best way to stay in touch with selected individuals while keeping your real location a secret. This is how it is done: before you take off, go to a local service and rent a mailbox. The cost will generally run from $8 to $12 a month. You can usually rent the box for up to a year at a time or as little as 90 days.

Advise the owner or manager that you will be out of town for a while and will need mail forwarded to you. Make up some bland, believable story, such as the company is transferring you or you have to care for a sick friend or relative for a while. Provide the new address where you will be during your disappearance, if you have it yet. If not, advise the manager that you will call or mail him or her soon with your temporary new address. Mail Drops will charge a fee for forwarding the mail to you, but this is usually quite reasonable.

For best security, I highly recommend renting another box at a mail drop near the place where you will be seeking refuge and giving this address to the first place as your forwarding address. Mail drop employees are generally very good at guarding their customers’ privacy (and in fact can be sued if they divulge information about their clients to anyone other than law enforcement agents with the proper authorizations), but there have been situations in which some have been bribed or otherwise coerced into revealing a person’s whereabouts. If you cannot find a private mail drop near your refuge, then a P.O. box rented from the local post office should suffice. A word of caution: do not use a regular P.O. box in the local post office if you can rent one from a private service instead. Private detectives and seasoned investigators have several tricks for getting forwarding addresses and other supposedly confidential data from postal employees. The official U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Web site (www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub549/pub549.htm) states that individuals serving legal process papers may obtain forwarding addresses. Imagine a maniacal spouse filing for divorce, using this as an excuse to obtain his soon-to-be-ex's current address in order to serve notice on her. When he does discover her whereabouts, he dissolves the union with a .44 Magnum instead of a court decree. Don't let this happen to you.

Besides receiving mail, you may need or want to send letters to people in your old world from time to time. If you simply mail them from the area you are taking refuge in, then you run the risk of compromising your privacy. Even if you do not put a return address on the envelope, the recipient, as well as anyone else who sees the envelope, will view the postmark and know your general location. There are two possible solutions to this:

• Travel away from your refuge occasionally to send mail. The further you can get away the better.
• Use a remailing service. This is a business that will receive mail from you and then remail it from its location. This allows the recipient to see the service’s postmark only, not yours. The mail drop that you set up in the place you left may provide this service. If not, there are an abundance of companies that do this around the country. It pays to be careful when choosing one; consult the Better Business Bureau in the area to find one that is established and reliable. I list resources in the back of the book that you can use to find out more about mail drops and remailing services.

In the case of Sally, the people who run her shelter have a system in place for her to communicate with family without giving away her location. Shelters tend to be very good at this sort of thing. Unlucky Larry has no desire to keep in touch with anyone from his old world, so he does not use the mail.

There are a couple of precautions I would advise taking when using mail drops. First, avoid accepting any certified or registered mail. These can be used by investigators trying to verify your current whereabouts. Second, try to check your mail at odd hours and different times each day. Finally, be wary of accepting any large, strangely shaped, or oddly colored packages that you are not expecting. If someone is shadowing the location and sees you walking out with the item, then your cover is blown. Third, beware of any correspondence you receive offering you a prize, advising you of a coming “reunion” of any sort, or urging you to respond to it. These are all methods used to find people who are using mail drops for privacy. I don’t mean to make you unnecessarily paranoid with all this talk. (I myself hate being paranoid, but I have no choice, with so many people against me.)

Mail drops and remailing services have endless uses, and the subject is broader than what I can cover here. If you wish to know more, I recommend the book How To Use Mail Drops for Profit, Privacy, and Self-Protection, available from Loompanics. A directory of mail drops is The Worldwide Maildrop Guide, published by Eden Press (www.edenpress.com).

There are other ways of keeping in touch besides physical mail. The best and cheapest of these is e-mail. You can set up a free electronic mail address from services like Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) that will let you check your messages from any computer that has Internet access. You will be asked to provide personal information in exchange for the free service. Lie.

You do not want to transfer or set up an Internet account in your new location; this can create a trail right to you. You may be staying with people who already have an account and will let you use theirs. If not, the local public library may have public access computers you can use.

There are now companies that offer prepaid Internet service. You buy a CD-Rom at a local computer, office, or convenience store and receive a limited amount of time on the ’Net. The last time I checked, 10 hours of Web time could be purchased prepaid for about 10 bucks. You sign no credit agreements, the prepaid service can be accessed from virtually anywhere, and you give no personal information to the vendor, so you can use it with anonymity.

Phone calls to your old world are usually not a good idea unless made some distance from your normal location. If you do need to keep in touch with a confederate, prepaid phone cards are available from major retailers and convenience stores. A prepaid cellular phone is a way of having wireless phone service without applying for credit. Which brings us to the subject of credit.

CREDIT

It is time we discussed that all-important subject. I strongly recommend against using credit for any reason while you are taking a powder. If you “put it on the card” once while in your area of refuge, you have blown it. You might as well get a bullhorn and ride through town shouting, “Hey everybody, here I am!” Your pursuers will find you if they are even halfway trying. This is especially true if you brought a financed vehicle or other mortgaged item with you, or if you left your creditors in the lurch when you took off.

If you absolutely must make purchases that require using a credit or debit card, then your only real option is to find someone who will let you use theirs. They will actually make the purchase in their name, and you pay them for it in cash in exchange for the merchandise when it arrives. Needless to say, there must be a strong bond of mutual trust between you and the person who does this for you.

Living without credit can be a very positive discipline to develop. There is no feeling like being debt free. Most purchases that are financed are completely unnecessary. Even a home or auto bought on time can be needlessly extravagant. You will never be truly free as long as you owe someone else. Pay as you go, live within a budget, and save as much as possible, and in the long run you will be much happier.

If you are going to pay bills while in refuge, use money orders and mail them through your mail drop/remailing service cover. Always save the money order stub, just in case a payment gets lost in the mail. You can use the stub to trace the order and get a refund if it was not cashed.

One drawback to the route Unlucky Larry chose is that his credit has been seriously damaged. He derives some satisfaction from knowing that his wife, who always depended on him financially, is suffering, but he will have to repair his credit rating in the future when he is done adventuring on the trail. He has plenty of cash to tide him over, so he is okay with this.

One last word: whether or not you continue to make payments on your debts while hidden is up to you. It is extremely unlikely that anyone will find you if you follow the directions in this book. But you do not want a mess waiting for you when you go home. If you can honor your debts while away, then it is best to do so.

MISCELLANEOUS FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

In closing this chapter, there are a few more items that I want to touch on:

• Insurance—especially health coverage. This is a virtual necessity in modern society. If you currently have a policy, then I suggest paying up the premiums through the time you expect to be gone. Yes, you run a discovery risk if you use it in your new area, especially if your plan penalizes you for using doctors outside your “local network.” But you also run a risk ignoring physical problems that could be signs of serious illnesses. One possible way around this dilemma is to find a physician in the area you will be in who will take cash payments. I found one in the area I took refuge in that only charged me $25 per visit. He did require me to fill out an initial application asking such embarrassing things as my Social Security number, but, as I recall, my answers on the form were highly inaccurate. You may also find a charity or government clinic that offers free services. Look around. This may be a major factor in determining where you spend your time in exile.
• Skills—there are things you should learn more about for your exodus. First aid techniques are good to know. Carry a good emergency medical kit with you. Take vitamins, exercise, and try to avoid stress. I advise against carrying a weapon, especially a handgun. But a knowledge of self-defense, both unarmed and/or using unconventional weapons like sticks, could save your life. Loompanics and Paladin Press sell dozens of books on first aid and self-defense. A good wilderness survival manual could come in handy too, in case the dung really hits the fan.
• Utilities—call to have them shut off if you have them in your name. Have any deposits forwarded to you through your mail drop system. Try not to cash the check while you are on “sabbatical.”
• Red herrings—I strongly suggest that you leave behind false “clues” as to your whereabouts. For example, if you are headed for Montana, get the Florida Department of Tourism to send you stacks of pamphlets about vacationing on their sunny beaches. Leave these in places where those wondering about you will find them. Right before you leave, you may want to mention to a few gossipy types that you have always wanted to see Alaska, knowing the whole time that Arizona is your destination.
• The pseudocide solution—this is a drastic way of discouraging pursuers, but it may be necessary to keep others from coming after you. Go to the ocean front or to the steep banks of a very wide, deep river, and leave a set of your identification along with a “suicide” note written by hand, saying something to the effect of “this was the only way out.” Leave some clothes, too, in a place where someone is likely to find them—preferably lifeguards or others in authority. This will scare the hell out of anyone who cares about you, but it is also very likely to shake anyone off your trail. Consider it as a last option if your situation warrants it (e.g., a homicidal spouse is trying to track you down to kill you).

In the next chapter we will discuss how to actually make the big break. Read on, fellow privacy seekers, read on.