I saw Bangkok Dangerous this weekend. One of the tenets of the hitman portrayed was “leave no witnesses”. What if you had inadvertently gotten involved with him and realized your danger. Further, let’s say that, by your calculation, if you could remain unfound for a year, that you could return and resume your life. So:
What would you have to do to disappear for year?
The obvious things: you couldn’t use your credit cards or (present) cell phone. You’d have to break all contact with everyone you knew, and leave your present town.
Let’s say you had time to get, oh, say $1000 in cash before you disappeared. What would you have to do? How would you live for that year? Would you take your car or not? Leave the country or not? What problems do you foresee, and how would you solve them?
What abilities would the hitman have to trace you? How could you avoid being traced?
J.
p.s., This question also relates to this thread, but I didn’t want to hijack that one.
I wondered about the same thing some time ago while discussing about missing persons with a friend, when suddenly it downed on me that tons of people, including some I knew, are currently doing mostly that, living “invisible” in the middle of society : illegal immigrants.
So I would say : going to some large city, seeking an undeclared job and living there like an illegal alien, without the benefit of contacting your family.
I can’t remember the last time I had less than $1000 in cash in my home or on my person. With the cash I have now, even without ID, I could be in any of 20+ countries within 24 hours and have enough to live on for as long as a year. It is easy to buy a new phone and rent an apartment anonymously. All my bills are auto-paid so that would continue to work. I could even run my business… though I would not be able to take any money out easily.
Witness protection plan I suppose. Turn states evidence and then have the Fed rebuild your life on the governments dime.
Other than that, what the others said…I know people who for one reason or the other ‘live off the grid’. It’s really not that hard and not all that expensive if you are willing to put up with a lower standard of living than most people are willing to do. Of course, if it’s a matter of low standard of living or no living…I know which I’d take.
I have actual books on this. There are a bunch of ways to do this. It just depends on the level of suckitude you feel like dealing with. Secret identity change still isn’t impossible and can let you live a somewhat normally in countries that don’t examine things closely. There are vast expanses of land in the U.S. and Canada that could allow you to live in complete solitude easily for a year. You would probably need to start your project before you disappeared however. Even if a plane spotted your little cabin, there wouldn’t be any reason for anyone to be suspicious. Alaska has tons of communal cabins all over the state for shelter in bad weather for example.