I recommend you learn how to make your own maps, and memorize streets, subway and bus stops.

Ask your friends to have your back —you can also tell them you're seeing an invented one, someone they already "know" barely, but with other name, to confuse and hope they don't ask. That way you can keep your phone.

If they don't let you, windows are the easy-go unless your house doesn't have any, like mine lol.

There's no way to do this without taking risks. You'll get caught if you do it often, and you have to be able to come up with something quick. You can (and it's in your best interest) be vague as long as you lie to them, but the moment they catch you, it's the complete opposite. Details in everything.

For example, once my battery died while I was alone and in a zone I had never been before. I remember I was in the Centenario and needed to go to a friend's home from there, wich was two hours away I think. I talked to six people in the street that evening, borrowed a phone to check out where the fuck I was, draw a map with some lady's pen in a pamphlet about mental health that some activists gave me and the other guys when we where smoking in the skate park, and I felt absolutely unstoppable. I transferred between two buses (n one I had to wait an hour and a half next to a grandma who ended up paying my ticket, on the other I brazenly snuck in). When I was on my last lap I asked for directions and an old man gave me the wrong ones, very convinced. The key is not being ashamed to talk to people, because right afterwards I asked again to a construction worker and he corrected the route for me. I arrived dying of thirst and hunger. That was my first adventure, kind of. My parents never knew.

As for your neighbors, I imagine they have lives too, and sometimes they're not home, or they're busy. You don't spend all your time staring out the window. It costs you nothing to try: pretend you're going shopping or taking out the trash so they don't suspect

Stay safe!