Christopher McCandless - Travels

Travels

In May 1990, Christopher McCandless donated the remaining $25,000 of the $47,000, given to him by a family friend for his law degree, to Oxfam International, a poverty eradication charity. Towards the end of June, he began traveling under the name "Alexander" McCandless until later adopting the last name of "Supertramp" (Krakauer notes the connection with Welsh author W. H. Davies and his 1908 autobiography The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp). Most people he encountered regarded him as intelligent and one who loved to read. By the end of the summer, McCandless made his way through Arizona, California and South Dakota, where he worked at a grain elevator in Carthage. He survived a flash flood, but allowed his car to wash out (although it suffered little permanent damage and was later reused by the local police force as an undercover vehicle) and disposed of his license plate. In 1991, McCandless paddled a canoe down remote stretches of the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. He crossed the border to Mexico and, having gotten lost in many dead-end canals, was towed by duckhunters to the sea, where he stayed for some time. He took pride in surviving with a minimum of gear and funds, and generally made little preparation.