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Annadale, Virginia, USA
This is the Suburb that Chris grew up in. Before Chris' parents started a company together, his father was an engineer for NASA. With Chris' parents being very stressed with the problems of the company, stress that led to arguments and sometimes physical fights between the parents. This left Chris and his sister, Carine, to trust in each other and have each others backs. It was also here that Chris learned his father had led a double life, making Chris resent him, until his own death. -
Emory University (Part 1)
After Chris Finished High School in Virginia, He attended Emory University for 4 years. He did this for his parents, even though he really did not want to attend college saying it is a waste of time.In between years at college he took trips across the US. He took these trips to get to know himself better. In his senior year of college he moved into an apartment that gave him only his basic necessities, such as water and electricity. -
Emory University (Part 2)
After he Graduated he donated almost all of his money, around $25000 to a charity that gives money to help obliterate poverty and starvation around the world.What he learns about himself through the events that passed is that he liked not playing by the rules.He liked to be his own person and did not like conformity.He really wanted to know what it was like to live without money and he did that well.It is most likely the full reason he decided to live in the Alaskan wild after his trip there. -
Dallas/ Houston, Texas
The first places Chris visits are Dallas & Houston.He heads west right after college and his first night he gets money stolen from him after leaving his window open. After then he hides his money in a hole next to his car from then on. This shows Chris to not trust society as much as he should. People will not do whats right just because you should. -
Detrital Wash, Arizona
This is the place where a flash flood occurred,causing McCandless' Car to being tossed around during the flood.Chris was camped right above the main channel and when the flood rolled in he had enough time to pack his stuff he was going to take and leave.But not before he burned his money and social security card, saying he had more fun times when broke.His car still had a guitar,25lb bag of rice and clothes.He really wanted to live off the land and took only what he needed from the car. -
Orick, CA
While Hitchhiking, an older couple finds Chris and offers him a ride. He accepted and camped with the couple for a few days and got close to them. A few days before meeting the couple,he got a ticket for hitchhiking. When asked his permanent residence, He said his parents house. Chris learns here that he can trust random strangers, just not all of them. -
Carthage, SD
Chris meets Wayne Westerburg, who he hitchhikes with, and becomes one of Chris' closest friends in this adventure. When they arrive in South Dakota, Wayne offers Chris a job as a worker in a grain elevator. Chris refused to accept pay, a sort of irony after he ran for not getting paid at another job. He stays until warmer weather, September. He learns values and the reasons to not leave. -
Topock, AZ
After hitching a ride to Needles, CA, Chris walks to Topock AZ where he finds an old metal canoe for sale and buys it out of impulse to paddle down the river to Mexico.He passes through Lake Havasu, in which is slower than most of the river. -
Gulf of California/Sonora Mexico
Once Chris meets the Mexican Border,and crosses it,he gets lost in canals used for irrigation and has to.Chris spends days and days trying to navigate the narrow waterways but finds himself going in circles.Luckily,he runs into a couple of duck hunters who explain that the canals do not actually reach the gulf.They offer him a ride to a small coastal town called El Golfo De Santa Clara.He accepts the offer and once getting there, continues his journey.After a storm hits Chris must stay in a cave -
West Coast of USA
Chris is caught by immigration trying to slip across the border just south of San Diego, and he spends a night in custody. Eventually, without needing to show his I.D. after explaining his situation,he re-enters the U.S. but is not allowed to keep his .38 handgun. He travels along the west coast and ends up in LA getting an I.D and working as a cook for McDonald's.He learns of all his problems and keeps distant from his coworkers and leaves after a couple months Chris leaves and sends Jan a card -
En Route to Carthage
On his way to Carthage, he meets a man,named Ronald.Chris is picked up by him and travels with him to Grand Junction CO.Him and Chris have many adventures and make sure to meet up again.Before Chris and Ron depart.Ron asks Chris if he will legally become his grandson,in which Chris says when he comes back he will.This is a bad trait for Chris because he had no intent to come back,at the time he said he would. This teaches us that we need to take the chances we are given before they are taken. -
Carthage SD
Chris's FINAL major stop before he heads north to live out his long awaited Alaskan wilderness fantasy. He goes back to Carthage to visit his good friend Wayne Westerberg, who he met a year and a half earlier. He spends the last half of March, 1992 working for Wayne in a grain elevator. In the very end of March, he begins hitchhiking north. He learns a lot from Wayne and thanks him and promises to stay in contact and visit when he gets back from Alaska. -
Canada
He stays at a gas station for 3 days to wait out a blizzard and after that is picked up by a trucker named Gaylord Stuckey. After this he is taken on a 3 day trip to Fairbanks, AK -
Fairbanks, AK
He asks Stuckey to drop him at the university so he can study the plants and animals of the area and what is edible.After 3 days He buys a .22 rifle, a rather small caliber gun for the Alaskan wilderness. Finally, Chris sends his last postcard ever not to his family, but to Wayne Westerberg. -
Healy, AK, USA
Chris begins hiking south along the Alaskan Highway towards Mt. McKinley, where he is picked up by an Anchorage-bound man named Jim Gallien. Jim gives him a ride all the way to Healy, Alaska, to the edge of the Stampede Trail, and becomes the last person to ever see Chris alive. He tries to give Chris his rubber boots, but Chris being Chris, he refuses. -
Stampede Trail Part 1
Dropped of by Jim Gallien on April 28th, 1992 on the edge of the Stampede Trail. The stampede trail is a narrow ATV / Snowmobile trail that is rarely treaded and can only be used in the winter and late summer. It crosses two large rivers which can only be crossed when there is very little water or a solid layer of ice. Otherwise, the run-off from Mount McKinley glaciers leaves a torrent current that is physically impossible to cross. -
Stampede Trail Part 2
When Chris arrived in late April, there was still a strong layer of ice covering it and he crossed with ease. A few miles in, he came across an abandoned Fairbanks City Transit bus that was used in the 50's as a shelter for a construction crew who made a failed attempt to build bridges over the rivers. Chris spent the next five months living out of this bus in complete isolation, surviving off of chipmunks and wild plants. -
Stampede Trail Part 3
By early August, his health suddenly diminishes and his only journal entries are about how weak he is becoming. His last entry is a cry for help, and then thanking God and blessing everybody he has ever met. It is estimated that he died on August 18, 1992. -
What Chris Learns Ultimately
Chris learns a lot through his journey. He mostly kept it in a journal. He learned from his mistakes as a child. He decided to go to law school when he got out of the wild. He chose to, most likely, forgive his family and reconnect with them, at least Carine. He deeply cared for everyone he met. He learned that preparedness is an important aspect of life and that if he went more prepared, he could've survived, going into the wild.