Christopher McCandless graduated from Emory University and then rejected materialism, donating his $24,000 savings to charity. He embarked on a cross-country drive to Alaska to live off the land in the wilderness. After hitchhiking for two years, he settled in an abandoned bus in Alaska but became trapped there when the stream he crossed swelled due to spring thaw. Running low on supplies, he ate misidentified plants and died of starvation at age 24. His body was found two weeks later.