This has always bugged the shit out of me and I can't seem to figure it out...

I've always wanted to just hitchhike, travel across the country for free and I read Into the Wild (2-3 years ago) and the whole time I'm reading this I'm trying to figure out how the hell is staying alive without any money in a foreign environment?!

Before he got a job (1 year or so of traveling) he burned all his money and identification info...He than went on over a couple thousand miles without any stable source of income....


How the hell did he do that?!!! What was he eating? They say he had a bag of rice, but that only lasts so long obviously... Not to mention he stayed out of cities and was in either the wilderness or small towns...The book never describes this and it's always confused me to the brink of insanity and seems to be the only thing that is really limiting me from taking part in such adventure this summer...

25 pounds of rice = 6 dollars.

1 pound of rice = lasts a long fucking time.

My guess is he foraged for most of his food like he did in Alaska which apparently led him to total insanity so I wouldn't really advise it. If you want to do shit like that, check out Tom Browns line of books, there pretty interesting with weird ass indian tales mixed in with survival information.

P.S. Don't kill yourself by eating random shit you find in the wilderness.

Yup, get a good field guide. I'm thinking of stealing stealing, "A Field guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America", "The Forager's Harvest", or "Edible wild Plants: A North American Field Guide". It shouldn't be that hard to get your 3 servings of veggies a day. There's also dumpster diving, and you could always catch birds and stuff. It really doesn't cost much to stay alive if you know what you're doing.

Rice and flour. There's an Australian food called Damper. Basically flour, salt, water. Cooked in the ground to make bread. Then if you want to eat gourmet you put some jam on it.

It wouldn't be hard to do this. Learn to fish, hunt and set traps. Now go from town to town working SMALL jobs. Ask any one of they have a days worth of labor for you, ask minimum wage. If you're good they might give you more work or refer you to friends. Sleep in a tent and eat cheap foods.

Powdered/long life milk, rice, flour, salt, onions, potatoes, apples, smoked meats, cheese, ramen noodles.

From the above ingredients you can make heaps of different meals. They're all cheap and last a fair while.

Be a travel writer. Stay at cheap hotels, eat where the locals do(or cheap places like that), and just write a review and send it in to a big newspaper or w/e and ask for money for your works. Not sure how the money thing would work, but it should give some ideas.

Saw it on natgeo tv.....forgot the name of the show

Actually had a guy staying at my hostel for like a week who was doing something similar. He started traveling and writing about his experiences. He called it "Adventure Journalism". He was French Canadian and sent a preview to a few news papers and magazines in Montreal. One signed him up and now his travels are sponsored.