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flea markets and swap meets with her boyfriend, Bob. “He had a book about plants with him, and he was using it to pick berries, collecting them in a
gallon milk jug with the top cut off. He looked pretty pitiful, so I yelled, ‘Hey, you want a ride somewhere?’ I thought maybe we could give him a
meal or something.
In datum 3, they who travel by car or van, or RV’s Recreational Vehicle are well-known as rubber tramps. They moved from one place to another place. In
North America the term recreational vehicle and its acronym, RV, are generally
used to refer to a vehicle equipped with living space and amenities found in a home; they are sometimes called motorhomes. A recreational vehicle normally
includes a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a living room. In other countries the term
camper van is more common, and the vehicles themselves vary, typically
being smaller than in North America Wikipedia, free encyclopedia, Many of Americans use RV for long trip, so they do not need to rent a or some rooms in
hotel or motel. This phenomenon makes a lot of people tend to spend their life on the road or nomadic life.
4.2.1.2 Long length of trip
We do always have time for having vacation such as, visiting recreation place, place for hanging out and etc; we spent on it approximately couple hours or
maximum couple days. But the thing which differentiates it with backpacking is the length of time. That vacation or trip also called conventional trip only has
limited time. But in backpacking people use to have such a trip for couple weeks,
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even maybe couple months. Most of the people who do backpacking are persons who love freedom such as, students after graduation or maybe they who have long
holiday, people who wants travel around the world, even retirees who want find something new backpackers and etc. In this novel, John McCandless spends 2
years for his backpacking trip. Here are some dialogues for datum 4; He was elated to be there. Inside the bus, on a sheet of weathered plywood
spanning a broken window, McCandless scrawled an exultant declaration of independence:
TWO YEARS HE WALKS THE EARTH. NO PHONE, NO POOL, NO PETS, NO CIGARETTES. ULTIMATE FREEDOM. AN EXTREMIST.
ANAESTHETIC VOYAGER WHOSE HOME IS THE ROAD. ESCAPED FROM ATLANTA. THOU SHALT NOT RETURN, ‘CAUSE “THE WEST IS
THE BEST. “ AND NOW AFTER TWO RAMBLING YEARS COMES THE FINAL AND GREATEST ADVENTURE. THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE TO
KILL THE FALSE BEING WITHIN AND VICTORIOUSLY CONCLUDE THE SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION. TEN DAYS AND NIGHTS OF FREIGHT
TRAINS AND HITCHHIKING BRING HIM TO THE GREAT WHITE NORTH. NO LONGER TO BE POISONED BY CIVILIZATION HE FLEES,
AND WALKS ALONE UPON THE LAND TO BECOME LOST IN THE WILD.
ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP MAY1992
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These memorial words were carved by McCandless in Alaska on April 1992, before his death. From these words, we know that he had trampling around
America for 2 years by backpacking. He did hitchhiking, anti modernism and wandered around for long length of time. During two years wandering around
McCandless visited a lot of places around America also meet some locals. These which make backpacking different with conventional vacation, in conventional
trip they do not have enough time to explore more, they have a plan which based on limited time. Also meeting locals is one of the most people like, because in
conventional trip they only have a few time to meet locals, his main purpose is just visiting the place. But in backpacking, most of them are live with the locals.
During his 2 years backpacking, McCandless met a lot of local people. As Pearce has already pointed out, ‘meeting people’ is one of the main characteristics of
backpacking Pearce, 1990
.
Here is datum 5; On March 14, Franz left McCandless on the shoulder of Interstate 70
outside Grand Junction and returned to southern California. McCandless was thrilled to be on his way north, and he was relieved as well—relieved
that he had again evaded the impending threat of human intimacy, of friendship, and all the messy emotional baggage that comes with it. He had
fled the claustrophobic confines of his family. He’d successfully kept Jan Burres and Wayne Westerberg at arm’s length, flitting out of their lives
before anything was expected of him. And now he’d slipped painlessly out of Ron Franz’s life as well
.
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In this datum, McCandless met some locals that in unintended way, but he actually needed, he made friends with them, even as a family too McCandless’s
coming in Franz’s life made Franz wanted to adopt him as a grandson, but McCandless refused it, he wanted to be free.
4.2.1.3 Simple Life
