I read the book and saw the movie, but this seems more like sixties and seventies escapism than a desire to survive in the wild. McCandless was older, a lot more prepared, and he wasn't into drugs. Both of them simply refused to listen to common sense.
Who can fault a kid for wanting to experience freedom and exploration for a brief time in his youth. How many millions have tried something like that or wished they did. It's just sad that he chose a really bad path to find himself by getting lost and getting high. That path is well worn with lots of dead end signs along the way.
"A clean-cut bodybuilder in high school, he had lately grown his hair long and wore a bandanna around his head."
"...to see if he could live in the wild, and to investigate some churches that practice a South American religion that uses a hallucinogenic tea as a sacrament."
