A number of my friends and consulting clients have begun talking about making contingency plans to drop entirely off the grid. One of them calls it “going ghost.” His goal: Being ready for a time of repression that would require him to drop off the radar–to essentially become mobile and invisible to authorities. He said that he wanted to have two options: 1.) In CONUS, being ready and ablrice to blend in and travel by road fairly anonymously, and 2.) being ready and able to travel internationally (OCONUS).
This whole concept of “going ghost” would be daunting for most of us. It is one thing to stop using any credit cards and cease accessing the Internet, but it is quite another to completely vanish. Anyone with a large family, and anyone living from paycheck to paycheck would find this nearly impossible. For many, just the stress of being out of contact with family and friends would be substantial. There would be many challenges. Most notably, traveling costs money–lots of money. When away from hearth, home, and garden nearly every aspect of life comes with a price tag attached. Every meal and every night’s lodging comes with a cost. And of course the larger your traveling party, the higher the cost. Granted, traveling solo can be done fairly inexpensively. But imagine the cost of keeping family of seven quietly on the move!
So this leaves us with our first dilemma: Travel on a shoestring budget.
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