You ever wander away as a young tot?

To the best of my recollection this isn't something I ever tried doing. My wandering was sort of approved of, to the extent of it was known that I was out of the home. It may have been figured I was at the park or somewhere else that I'd said I was going once out the door all bets were off.

My granddaughter liked to hide from us in the store (in the clothing racks)
Only when we sang "Happy birthday" did she come out.

I didn't come home after kindergarten one day. A little girl had just gotten raped and murdered in our neighborhood, but I didn't know that. They were besides themselves when I got home. I had been in my friends basement all that time. He had a new train set. I got the crap spanked out of me and sent to bed without supper. (That's how my folks showed concern)

Yep. I was five, in kindergarten, about twelve blocks from home (my aunt's house, where my mother and I were staying at the time, father off overseas).
One recess period, they somehow missed me when bringing the kids in, and then didn't miss me inside either. I waited what seemed like a long time (who knows), and then started the walk home, which was across a moderately busy street and then less busy blocks. I made it about half way. Don't remember if I was actually lost or whether they had then missed me and got cracking on trying to find me via our address. I just remember that people seemed pretty excited when they showed up, though I didn't know that word, excited, at the time. No spanking.

I grew up to like walking a lot in cities.

I went to work one morning and, as I left the apartment, I locked the deadbolt with my key. About ten to twenty minutes later, I returned, having forgotten something I needed on the job. My wife and son had been in bed when I left and my wife slept, still. But, a chair was beside the door, the deadbolt unlocked and my three year old son gone. I went down the sidewalk, questioning folks on the way and finally learned he had been in the UTotem grocery at the corner. The clerk tried to keep him there, but he bolted, new toy in hand, out the door. The trail went cold. I went home and was about to call the police, when the phone rang. It was the daycare center up the way in the opposite direction, calling to tell me they had my boy. My wife slept through it all. I realized later that if I had gotten her ideas, she might have suggested the daycare right off.

Yes, I did and was subsequently raised by wolves!

My youngest brother was the worst as a toddler. He would try to escape all the time. He could figure out any bolt. We then resorted to putting chain locks on the top of all the doors. One morning we find him with diapers on standing on chair in which he had to have dragged over from another room, broom in hand trying to undo the lock on the top of the door.

I honestly wonder (mine mind included) what possess some children to try to escape. It is really that bad in the house?

Kids are naturally adventurous. My first daughter constantly picked the highest surface in a room and tried to figure out how to get on top of it. It's a wonder those two kids lived to grow up.

I used to go outside all the time in the middle of the night when I was little. Way before kindergarden.

We lived on the 2nd floor, so I'd take the key to our 2nd floor entrance, lock that one so no one getting up would know, and I'd leave the downstairs door unlocked. Then I'd just go outside and wander around the property. It was a marina, so I'd walk up and down the docks. I liked sitting on the end of the dock and watching the moon on the water.

As told by my parents, I supposedly wandered away from my family as we visited a docked air craft carrier while it was temporarily stationed at Battleship Cove in Massachusetts. I must have been 3 or 4 at the time.
http://www.battleshipcove.org/

Apropos of that event, I recall my Dad (rarity) taking us as a family to that same Battleship Cove in or around 1961 to see the dedication of the Big E (USS Enterprise), the world's first nuclear battleship and the eighth of the Enterprises. Hey, we might've been in the same place at same time. Perhaps not...as your profile indicates a greater age difference.

I was appalling. As a three year old they had to pick me up from the police station - I'd wandered a kilometre to the highway where a soldier found me (we were kind of near Holsworthy Army barracks).

I used to do it all the time (actually I say 'used to' in the sense that when I do it now it doesn't scare my parents).

My first memory of doing it was age 4 in the high street in Liverpool (western subs of Sydney) following my brother (who was holding mum's hand) across a pedestrian crossing, and suddenly realising the red,white & black check shirt I was following was on some other kid's back. Looked around and couldn't see my mum or aunty. So pulled out my imaginary sextant and plotted a course for home (about 2 miles away) This isn't quite the route (I cut aross Woodward Park)

https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/65+Passefield+St,+Liverpool+NSW+2170/Scott+St+%26+Macquarie+St,+Liverpool+NSW+2170/@-33.9282116,150.9121977,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x6b1295ab80c8a65b:0x1779b83c5388c45e!2m2!1d150.910692!2d-33.930405!1m5!1m1!1s0x6b1295bbbe9a8849:0xc1c429e6856b5105!2m2!1d150.9232237!2d-33.9248875!3e2?hl=en

Seemed like hours before they'd done enough panicking to come home and see if I was there.

Luckily they weren't too angry. I imagine today there'd be amber alerts.

I still have that drive to walk and explore and be self-reliant.

I was no scout like you hingehead. I preferred straight lines, like the railroad tracks. My brothers never should have taken me berry and rhubarb picking. I always looked longingly up the tracks, and when I was sure no one was looking, would make off up them. It was delightfully frightening, all those tall trees and dense undergrowth that could have held anything. The Glimmer Glass crossing, about 1/2 a mile up, always stopped me going North, as I was more pretrified of crossing that little bit of water and seeing it under the railroad ties, than I was of whatever "bad things" I may have been warned about. Why, I never saw one man offering me candy to get into his car out there on those tracks.

When I was older, around 7, I remember going to some boat show at the convention center in Asbury Park. My parents had some boats showing there. Since I hated boats, and the place was full of them, I was excited when I came across an unlocked door, just sitting there with no one watching it. I wandered around the inner workings on the building, practicing all my secret spy stuff. The only people I came across were some group that was being shown some travelogue in a dark room. I snuck in, sat in the back, got bored, snuck out.

About that time, I went to NYC with my parents, because they had to see their lawyer, or some boring thing. While waiting in the reception area, I asked to use the rest room, which was out in the hall. My mother was so dumb, she said "Just don't go on those elevators." Uh.....sure. That time I got panicey because I forgot to look to see what floor we had been on, and after getting on an off a dozen times on different floors, had no idea which one was mine. I was just afraid of being yelled at for getting on the elevator.

Think early 1970s ('74ish perhaps).

I didn't wander much, but one day I came home from school and found my parents had moved with no forwarding address. After a tearful reunion, they told me they just forgot.

At least your parents didn't change their last names and start wearing fake nose and glasses disguises.

nope..off by 13 yrs.

Is that what yours did? Rotten. Truly rotten.

Yes and the reason I was raised by wolves is they dropped me off at the door...err...ahh...den!

I grew up way out in the backwoods. Nearest settlement was half an hour away by car. I used to go wandering around in the woods alone all the time. Got lost a few times, figured out how to backtrack, somehow made it back before supper time, never even told anybody about it. Damn good memories there. I still relish such solitude.