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Chris's abandoned school bus serves as a strong metaphor for the uncertain isolation he seeks. The bus is not a naturally occurring thing, implying that Chirs did not attain the "wild" he wanted. During the first several days of his journey, Chris rides the bus as a symbol of good fortune. He leaves it for that very reason: he now believes his journey will go well. In an apparent reversal, he then returns to the bus after weeks of struggling without it. "went to Alaska and moved into the abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail. In a card he mailed to Westerberg in October, he says of Bullhead, "It's a good place to spend the winter and I might finally settle down and abandon my tramping life, for good". At the time he wrote these words, he was holding down a full-time job, flipping Quarter Pounders at a McDonald's on the main drag, commuting to work on a bicycle" (Krakauer 5)

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Christopher McCandless left or discussed books at practically every stop on his journey. His paperbacks, which included Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and Henry David Thoreau's Walden, were a symbol of his brilliance and his contradictory search for others who saw the world as rotten. "He was an extremely intense young man and possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with modern existence. Long captivated by the writing of Leo Tolstoy, McCandless particularly admired how the great novelist had forsaken a life of wealth and privilege to wander among the destitute. In college McCandless began emulating Tolstoy's asceticism and moral rigor to a degree that first astonished, and then alarmed, those who were close to him" (Krakauer authors note).

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Many of Chris' letters and postcards explain his life as he travels to Alaska, while others plead for assistance as he battles to live. In one case, Chris writes a postcard to his buddy Wayne Westerberg that reads, "This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne... If this adventure proves fatal and you don't ever hear from me again I want you to know you're a great man. I now walk into the wild" (Krakauer/Chris 7)

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In high school, Chris purchases a used yellow Datsun with money he earned from selling construction contracts one summer. He is so attached to the car that he flatly declines his parents' offer to purchase him a new one for his graduation. "After graduation, MsCandless mails his final transcript to his parents. After not hearing from him again, Walt and Billie drive down to Atlanta, where they find his apartment available for rent. Back home they find all their letters to Chris returned in a bundle. Having instructed the post-office to hold his mail for a month to throw his parents off his trail, Chris drives westward in his yellow Datsun on a road trip to reinvent himself and discover the wild" (Krakauer 3). Chris's yellow Datsun represents his pride in his hard work, his contempt for his parents' wealth, and his rejection of a safe and comfortable way of life.

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"Alex admitted that the only food in his backpack was a 10-pound bag of rice. his gear seemed exceedingly small for the harsh conditions... Alex's cheap leather hiking books were neither waterproof nor well insulated. His rifle was only .22 caliber, a bore too small on if he expected to kill large animals" (Krakauer 1). This backpack represents Chris very well because Chris's lack of appropriate supplies demonstrates that he is inadequately prepared for the journey, implying that he is either excessively confident in his camping abilities or incredibly naive about route conditions.

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This Moose represents Chris because of the moose, Chris is revealed to be immensely honorable and deeply sympathetic. "... at that point he gave up on preserving the bulk of the meat and abandoned the carcass to the wolves. Although he castigated himself severely for this waste of the life he'd taken..." (Krakauer 16) He spends days attempting to cure the moose's flesh so that he can swallow every component of the animal. However, he mistakenly stores the meat, causing it to become infected with vermin and hence inedible. Chris is forced to leave the moose corpse for the wolves, which makes him feel terrible.