I love road trips. I love rolling down the windows, letting my hair go crazy, laughing until I cry, crying until I laugh, watching the world go by. Watching the journey. With a plane you walk into a tin can and wait a few hours until you can walk back out. There’s no journey; you’re automagically transported to a new place full of the same strip malls you left behind. Being a part of the journey – the open road, the hypnotic landscape – it unlocks a piece of my soul.
But I never really truly feel free until I park the car, lace my boots, put on my pack, and head off into the wilderness. (Granted, the wilderness in Alabama or North Carolina is not the wilderness of my father’s Montana, but it is as close to wild and free as I can get). After I left grad school I would fantasize about taking off across the country, staying as far away from people as I could, and living off the land. Somewhere along the way I was enticed by the stability of a roof over my head and food I didn’t have to buy or dive in a dumpster for.
Christopher McCandless was a brave foolish boy. Into the Wild is the book that details his journey as Alexandar SuperTramp, and his story’s tragic end. I loved the quotes from other adventurers at the beginning to each chapter. And I liked reading about his love for the wide open spaces of the West.
Is the greatest human weakness laziness or fear?
3/5
207 pages
[I still dream of running away...]
Related posts:
- Book 1: The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere by Debra Marquart
- Book 2: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
- Book 10: Day by Elie Wiesel