If a wanted criminal was on the run which US state would be the best to hide in indefinitely between Florida, Maine and Washington (besides the one that is closest to them)?
This is inspired by the episode in Breaking Bad where Walt pays to be relocated to New Hampshire after his criminal activities are discovered.
Maine, because it’s the most rural/least populated of the three?
Is this good though? No man is an indefinite island, and the fewer people around, the more they are likely to pay attention to any newcomer, especially one who exhibits curious behavior.
I think it would be impossible to hide indefinitely anywhere without the resources to change your appearance and establish a new identity, and then it might be best to hide in plain sight, to live as an unremarkable private person drawing as little attention to yourself as possible in the anonymity of a city. Ideally somewhere that has high resident population turnover with concomitantly weak community social ties - near a college maybe? (…was that the thought process for being near a military academy in Abbottabad?)
Washington has a lot of empty space in the north-central and eastern parts of the state. Like, population density = 0/sq. mile empty. Stay away from the I-5 corridor, Puget Sound, and the Spokane area and you’ll likely be mostly or totally alone. With only a little bit of work (and a functional RV) you can likely live far away from any other human being. Add that to the conservative nature of central & eastern Washington residents, who are naturally distrustful of gummint types snooping around, and I’d say that’s where the smart money is.
I’m thinking you don’t want too sparsely populated a state. There’s that phenomenon where you stand out because you’re the only person the others don’t know from way back when, along with your family of origin.
Rural people aren’t oblivious to the properties and people in their area just because each property plot is a mile and a quarter on the leg that fronts the road.
But yeah… I’d do Maine too. Among other things they have a privacy-respecting culture and a lot of people have decided to live there to be isolated, on purpose.
I assume we’re talking about hiding in the woods until the authorities stop looking. I’d want to be deep in Maine where nobody will recognize me because nobody will see me. I will steal food from the few houses I pass along the way.
If this guy is anything to go by, probably Maine.
Sounds like surviving the winters was the tough part.
If they’d just get rid of their phone they could hide anywhere.
I live in the Seatte area. I think there are a lot of places in WA state that are pretty sparsely populated, distrustful of the government, and one could kinda hide out without going into the back country. Yakistan would probably be ok (aka Yakima valley if you ain’t from these parts)>
Of course, if you ain’t white, prolly Florida would be your best bet.
My experience in Washington is that you can live somewhere for a decade and still not know most of your neighbors. A huge percentage of the population is former Californians who want to get away from people. A fugitive avoiding contact with other humans would arouse less suspicion than someone actively trying to make friends.
Given the choice, I’d rather go off the grid in a big, chaotic city than in the country. For that reason, I’d head to Miami.
Move to Kelso. Authorities would never believe anyone would be desperate enough to live there.
Maine would be great for hiding in near-wilderness, but the winters would be very, very challenging.
I think it might be better to hide in plain sight, as it were, in a major tourist area.
I would choose Maine hands down because there is a huge wilderness area and you have the option of getting over the border into Canada.
It depends on whether you can survive on your own in the wilderness. But if you can, then it’s Maine, hands down.
This, plus how hard they’re looking for you. If you know how to survive in the wilderness and can keep your head down in the woods while they passively wait for you to pop up, you should be safe in Maine woods. But if they’re going to be using aircraft with infrared, tracking dogs, etc.; you’re probably better off in Florida with its many urban areas.
Washington, Spokane or Seatac areas, or, more likely cause I don’t want to deal with that weather if I’m gonna be on the lam, Florida, Miami or the like. Anonymity and camouflage in numbers, like a school of fish.
We have a really small town around here. Every so often, there is a murder there that makes the news. It seems like it’s always the new guy who just moved into the area from “the Big City” just a year or two ago.
Would it make a difference that Maine has an income tax, while Florida and Washington do not? I’ve never lived in a “no income tax” state, so I have no idea whether this would be helpful or moot.
To “hide indefinitely” as the OP asks for, you need to either be totally self sufficient like a 1830s fur trapper, or you need a way to interact with the local economy without drawing suspicion.
When I went to USAF survival & evasion school one of the mantras was “people catch people.” If you’re hiding and are immediately recognizable as an outsider, you want to be nowhere near anyone and you need to live solely on your wits and what you can carry and forage. Which in our case was expected to last a week or 3 at most before being rescued, captured, or dying of exposure. “Indefinitely” is a lot longer than 3 weeks.
The “interact with local economy” gig is a lot more plausible for “indefinitely”. Your best odds on anonymity are in a big transient city living as a homeless or nearly homeless person on the cash economy. Sling hash in a diner, or pound nails on a construction site, walk, ride a bike, or use coins to ride the bus to get around, and flop in the kinds of places that don’t ask questions and aren’t surprised when you move on 2-3 months later.
It’s a hard life, but arguably better than being in the slammer.
For me it’s a no brainer to choose Florida. Lotta transients, lotta turnover, plenty of immigrant-centric black economy to join, and no freezing to death overnight when you’re unexpectedly cashless between jobs.
That would be my choice. Unless you have the supplies to disappear completely, you want to be in a place where one wrong (for some general sense of wrong-say you like a particular kind of tea. In rural Maine that might be remembered if it is available at all, in Miami no one will give it a second thought) purchase or action won’t attract attention because of the large number of wrong purchases and wrong actions are are already going on. That identifies Florida to a T.