head for the hills

present singular third person heads for the hills · participle present heading for the hills · participle past headed for the hills · past headed for the hills

1. To travel to a higher elevation, especially to a rural region on vacation.

   Modern campers look for comfort first when they head for the hills.

   2006 July 13, Jeremy Caplan, “Comfy Camping”, in Time

2. idiomaticTo go to a safe place; to seek refuge; to flee.

   Goldman Sachs warned that we are ‘only at the start of a steep downturn’ and advised investors to head for the hills.

   2008 June 19, “Builders bashed after housing subsidence”, in managementtoday.com, UK, retrieved 25 Jun 2008

   1 more example

   Corbett has an interesting insight into the reactions of his colleagues from diverse backgrounds: "The ex-British Rail people responded much better than those from the private sector. In terms of helping, the private sector people headed for the hills, while the railway people, like Chris Leah [the operations director] and Dick Fearn [the Midlands Zone director] moved towards the gunfire. The non-railway people on the whole didn't."

   2026 March 4, Christian Wolmar, “Railtrack: what really happened”, in RAIL, number 1056, page 52