Into the Wild: Chris McCandless's Rebellion

Into the Wild: Chris McCandless’s Rebellion

This is the most famous self-portrait of Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young American traveler and existential rebel who, in the early 1990s, after graduating with top marks, decided to donate his money to charity, burn all his documents, and disappear from circulation in order to hit the road and travel as a drifter across the American West toward his final destination: Alaska.

It was here that he spent the last 112 days of his life, living in an abandoned bus he nicknamed the Magic Bus. He was found dead inside the Magic Bus by two hunters in August 1992. Alongside him were several items he had used to survive, his notes, a camera containing this self-portrait, and a few books by Tolstoy, London, and Thoreau.

What messages do this story and this film seek to convey? We have tried to offer our own interpretation. Read on...

The Courage to Let Go

In the Western world, materialistic by definition, a person like Chris, raised in comfortable circumstances, who chooses to become a drifter may seem crazy in the eyes of many. Well, it’s hard to think otherwise! In reality, we believe Chris’s gesture represents the courage to let go. The young man begins to develop a critical awareness of modernity, to the point of rejecting his family and, above all, the idea it represents: that of a fundamentally unjust society that does not lend a hand to the weakest, but instead bears down on them. Is it not courageous to reject the environment in which you were born in order to embrace your personal cause? How many people would do it?
 

Alexander Supertramp: Search, Rebellion, and Rebirth

Christopher’s first act of rebellion is to choose a new name for himself: Alexander Supertramp (“Alexander, great tramp”), which in some way marks a rebirth in the name of total freedom from anything material and from every pattern and plan that would otherwise have limited him. Alexander undertakes this journey to find truth, the lost authenticity of the human being, but not from an anti-social perspective.
 

Happiness Is Only Real When Shared

The fact that Alex embarks on his journey alone does not make him a hermit—quite the opposite. The people he meets along the way and the bond he forms with each of them reveal his desire to build human connections. The final message on this is very clear: “happiness only real when shared.”

Into the Wild helped us rethink the kind of road trip we were used to, in a different and more experiential way. Travel begins to be seen as a true tool for self-education, personal growth, and self-fulfillment. The film then leaves us with one final, essential message: happiness only real when shared.

It leaves you in awe to watch this film and listen to this story. You begin to imagine your own challenges, your own personal quests—in short… your very own Alaska.

And if reading this story has made you want to escape, made you dream of distant destinations in unspoiled nature... take a look at our ALASKA ADVENTURE TRIP. You won’t regret it!