# Travel Mode — nTilia > A step-by-step story: a freelancer crosses a checkpoint with nTilia’s Travel Mode. What the phone carries, what it leaves, what you do yourself. Canonical: https://ntilia.com/en/travel/story A freelance Pro. Three weeks in the field. Léa, at the desk, already has the file. I’m a freelancer, nTilia Pro. Three weeks of interviews in a place where, on the way out, phones get searched — a border post or a makeshift checkpoint, you never know early enough. Léa, at the desk, already has the encrypted file. Tomorrow morning I’ll be in the line. They can open everything: nTilia, Signal, the camera roll. What they should find on my phone: a hotel contact, a permit. What they should no longer find: the names. You don’t improvise that at the barrier. You prepare it before you leave. A fictional story. No country, no armed force named. nTilia does not wipe the phone: Signal, photos, maps, and already-downloaded ZIPs remain searchable. IndexedDB is not a forensic wipe. ## In short - Travel Mode, from Pro: before you leave, an encrypted copy goes to a safe recipient (newsroom, desk). - At the checkpoint, the phone no longer carries your sensitive notes. - “Empty” wipes the phone only: the cloud stays, hidden, and only comes back after 24 hours or the recipient’s approval. “Burn” also destroys the private cloud copy, never the recipient’s. Both are available on every plan. - If the phone slips out of your hands, you or your recipient empty it remotely as soon as it gets a network. - Not to be confused with “Prepare to leave”, which leaves a ZIP on the phone. - Limits: this is not a forensic wipe (the required vault makes what remains unreadable), and an article already published stays online unless you hide the journal. ## Before leaving. At the barrier. Once somewhere safe. 1. **Léa has the file before I leave** — I name her nTilia account. Whenever the notebook changes, an encrypted snapshot reaches her — she opens it with her vault, I open it with my phrase. This is not a ZIP in Files — that one they’d find in my pocket. 2. **They open nTilia. They see the hotel.** — A hotel note, a permit. Not the interviews. Signal, photos, maps: nTilia did not touch those. I took care of that myself. 3. **Léa sends the file back** — I open it with the vault phrase. The account password is not enough. The same notes come back. ## Too late to evacuate. It depends where the copy is. - **Léa already has it, or a .ntilia is off me** — Burn. Phone and private cloud empty. Her copy is not destroyed. - **Only this account’s nTilia cloud** — Empty, don’t burn. The cloud stays, hidden. Somewhere safe: Restore, and Léa approves. Burn would also kill the copy I can get back. - **Nothing left this phone** — Choose: the scoop on the device, or an empty device. nTilia does not do both. ## I don’t leave with the names in my pocket Three weeks before I come back, I’m still at the desk. I don’t wait for the barrier. I create two Missions. “Logistics”: the hotel at the crossroads, public contacts, the permit. I check it: that one, I take with me. “Sources”: the interviews, the names. Unchecked. In Settings I type Léa’s nTilia account, at the desk. From the first sync, an encrypted file reaches her; her vault opens it, she can read at the desk without waiting for me. Burn can empty my cloud; her copy, no. I do not tap “Prepare to leave”: that ZIP would sit in Files, still searchable. That’s for a network outage. Not for a checkpoint. The scoop survives if it has already left the phone. ## What doesn’t cross, I remove. It’s still dark. Nobody on the track. This is now, not at the barrier. There’s still a network: I turn on Travel Mode. Notes outside logistics leave this device. The vault locks. If there were no network, I’d share a .ntilia with a colleague who isn’t crossing — then confirm the file is no longer here, before I purge. A ZIP in Downloads is still the scoop in a pocket. I also clear Signal, the camera roll, the maps. nTilia will not do that for me. What’s left is the hotel. The rest is no longer here. ## At the barrier, they find the hotel. The line isn’t moving. They take my phone. They open nTilia. A hotel contact, a permit. Not the names. They tell me to open everything back up. I press Restore in front of them: nTilia answers that deactivation takes effect in 24 hours, or once Léa approves it. It isn’t unwillingness. It’s the server. The journal I’d already published stays online — yesterday’s piece isn’t a secret. Signal, the camera roll, maps, a ZIP forgotten in Files: nTilia didn’t touch those. This is not a factory reset. It’s an empty notebook, not a new phone. They close it. I go through. nTilia is not the phone. ## If it comes too soon, I don’t burn at random. A colleague called me once: too late to send the drop. The rule is where the last copy is. If Léa already has it, or a .ntilia is already off me: Burn. Phone and private cloud empty; her copy, intact. If I only have this account’s nTilia cloud: Empty, not Burn — otherwise I also kill the copy I can restore somewhere safe. If nothing left me: choose. The scoop on the device, or an empty device. nTilia does not do both. Without a copy off me, Burn kills the scoop. ## Léa sends the file back. A room, Wi-Fi, the other side of the barrier. Léa sends me the .ntilia. I open it with the vault phrase — the account password is not enough, and that phrase was not on the phone. The same notes come back, then I push to an empty cloud. The already-public journal was not burned. What doesn’t come back: local version history, the glossary. The story is there. The copy that mattered was already with Léa. ## What I no longer mix up - **Prepare to leave** — Sync + ZIP on this device. For a network outage. The opposite of a checkpoint: the file stays searchable. - **Travel Mode** — Sensitive notes leave the device. Logistics can stay. The off-body copy is already with Léa. From Pro. - **Empty / Burn** — Last resort in the line. Empty leaves the cloud. Burn destroys it — not the drop with Léa. ## Three questions before you go. **No network?** I share a .ntilia with a colleague who isn’t crossing, confirm the file is no longer here, then purge. A download in Files is still the scoop in a pocket. **No recipient?** Travel Mode still empties the device. Burn also kills my cloud — and the scoop, if no .ntilia already left. **What about Signal, photos?** nTilia is not the phone. Long PIN, biometrics off, Files, camera roll, maps: a checklist, not magic. I do that myself, before the line. **What if they keep the phone?** From another device, I empty it remotely; Léa can do it from her account. It erases itself as soon as it gets a network. If it stays offline, nothing reaches it: that is why I empty it before the line. I don’t disguise a notebook. I take it off the device that will be searched, because a copy this account cannot destroy already exists — with Léa.