Last October we noted that locals in Healy, Alaska, were considering removing the old bus where Christopher McCandless died. They feared that people moved by John Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild” and Sean Penn’s movie adaptation would tramp 22 miles into the wilderness to see the bus, only to wind up in the same kind of trouble McCandless did. Well, the bus is still there—it has long served as a refuge for hunters—and the AP reports that, with temperatures rising, plenty of people are indeed making the trek or inquiring about it.

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It’s not often that an outdoor/adventure writer like Jon Krakauer gets more than a sound bite of TV time to talk about writing and the outdoors. So I was eager to see the latest installment in the Sundance Channel series “Iconoclasts.” The show features Krakauer and actor/filmmaker/provocateur Sean Penn traveling to Alaska, talking writing and filmmaking. The pair reflect on the life of Chris McCandless, the subject of Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” which Penn just turned into a film. They make a pilgrimage to the bus where McCandless spent his final days. Afterward, Krakauer shows Penn the ropes of ice climbing and they talk life philosophy. It turned out to be a pretty good, thoughtful hour of television.

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Future “McCandless pilgrims” could be in for a disappointment. The Alaskan town of Healy, located about 40 kilometers from the old school bus where Christopher McCandless died, is considering the removal, restoration or destruction of the bus before the next wave of greenhorns, inspired by the recent film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” arrive to pay tribute. 

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As the hype for Sean Penn’s movie adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s “Into the Wild” grows, and Outside revisits one of its most famous stories, Men’s Journal has weighed in with a less-reverent take on the life of Christopher McCandless. Matthew Power asks: “Was his death a Shakespearean tragedy or a pitch-black comedy of errors? What impact has the tale and its renown had on our perception of Alaska? And perhaps most tantalizingly: Did Krakauer, and now Penn, get key parts of the story wrong?”

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Based on Outside’s coverage of Sean Penn’s upcoming film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild,” I’m upgrading my hopes about its quality. Christopher Keyes visited the set and compiled an oral history of the making of the movie for the September issue. He reveals that Penn has the support of the family of the movie’s subject, Christopher McCandless, and was apparently meticulous with the details of the story.

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Likely so. Bethel, a city of 5,900 located about 400 miles west of Anchorage, has one cab for every 84 people, according to the AP. New York City has one cab for every 149 people. Bethel owes its cab-happy status to its geography: It’s ringed by thousands of ponds and you can’t drive in or out of town. 

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Sean Penn lined up some impressive talent for his adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s beloved book Into the Wild, the story of twentysomething Christopher McCandless’s self-imposed exile from mainstream society and tragic journey into the Alaskan wilds. Penn wrote and directed the film, which stars Emile Hirsch, Vince Vaughn, Catherine Keener, Zach Galifianakis, William Hurt and others. Eddie Vedder and Gustavo Santaolalla contribute to the soundtrack. The movie opens Sept. 21, and already I’m getting that dueling “I can’t wait to see it/I can’t believe what an awful idea this is” feeling of seeing a favorite book get turned into a movie. 

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They’re turning people back at the Canadian border, shrinking the payout for blackjack in Las Vegas and seeing through your clothes in Phoenix. Those stories—plus journeys to Alaska, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Sweden and Mulholland Drive—are intriguing travelers this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Going to Canada? Check Your Past

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Las Vegas: A Winner’s Guide to Blackjack
* Casino are starting to pay only 6-5 for blackjack. What’s next? No doubling down?

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Full-Body X-Ray Security Scanner Debuts
* The first passengers asked to submit to a full-body X-ray, apparently, “didn’t bat an eyelash.”

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Escapes Under $500: Go to Puerto Rico’s Second City
* That would be Ponce.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
The Cold Show in Fairbanks, Alaska

Most Read Travel Story
World Hum (this week)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘100 Places Every Woman Should Go’

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Wayfaring

Best Waterfront City
Project for Public Spaces
Stockholm

Travel Story of the Year
Solas Awards (2007)
Fishing With Larry by Tom Joseph
* Here are all the prize winners.

Most Competitive Country
World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitive Index
Switzerland
* What is this? “The index is not a ‘beauty contest’, or a statement about the attractiveness of a country. On the contrary, the index measures the factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism industry of individual countries,” said Jennifer Blanke, Senior Economist of the World Economic Forum.

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Coordinates: 55 47 N 132 50 W
Approximate area: 2,731 sq. mi. (7,073 sq. km)
With a relatively limited amount of physical evidence, the peopling of the Americas has long been a subject of study complicated by Bering Strait-sized gaps in our understanding. Recent DNA testing on remains recovered from Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island, however, suggests that the migration from Asia to Tierra del Fuego may have occurred earlier—and faster—than previously believed. Genetic similarities between the people who occupied On Your Knees Cave here on this heavily forested patch of land some 10,300 years ago and modern descendants of native Pacific coastal populations led researchers to this new hypothesis. The third largest island under U.S. sovereignty, Prince of Wales in the Alexander Archipelago saw a period of population growth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the introduction of salmon and pearl shell industries, but it has since declined.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

Did Laurie Gough’s World Hum dispatch Yukon Summer Sky only whet your appetite for stories of the Yukon River? Dan O’Neill’s book A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River came out recently, and yesterday the New York Times called it “a colorful and meandering portrait of the region, with an intriguing agenda.” That agenda? Reviewer Louise Jarvis Flynn writes: “Writers are human conservationists perforce, and O’Neill is a fierce protector. ‘As people are eliminated from Alaska’s parks, new stories cease to be created and the tradition dies,’ he writes. O’Neill casts a mold of the Yukon landscape before nature takes back the last human footprint. He reintroduces us to our more resourceful selves, and reminds us that some people — nutty as they may seem — actually want to live those bumper sticker slogans on beat-up Volvos. To O’Neill, it’s only fair to leave the scrappy individualists to their hidey-huts and fish wheels, their trapping lines and birch canoes, not only for their sake but for ours: to leave a little something for the American imagination, an elemental way of life that is lonely and lovely and very nearly gone.”

It’s been a tough week for cruisers. Almost two days after the crowded Crown Princess rolled 15-degrees to its left while sailing off the coast of Florida, the injury total has reached more than 200. All who were thrown out of swimming pools and onto railings were expected to recover, according to the Miami Herald. We’re also seeing the day-after rush of on-board video and reaction from passengers. Miami’s CBS affiliate has some good home video of the post-tilt aftermath. Kudos to the local anchor who kept a straight face when he ended the segment with the revelation that the scheduled movie aboard the Crown Princess the night of the accident was Titanic. 

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Population: 3,592 (2004 est.)
Coordinates: 64 30 N 165 25 W
Everybody makes mistakes—including cartographers. Take a closer look at the state of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. In the mid-19th century, a British mapmaker transcribing a naval chart apparently misread “? Name” as “C. Nome,” thus giving this small Alaskan city its appellation. And although a group of miners attempted to rename the settlement Anvil City in 1899, the United States Postal Service insisted on Nome, after the cape on the Norton Sound. Which begs the question: Did North Dakota and Texas arrive at Nomes of their own due to similar errors?

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.