'Into the Wild' bus removed from Alaska because too many people were coming to look for it

People put themselves in all kinds of situations for a good photo or story from their travels – including apparently visiting an abandoned bus.

This abandoned bus was made popular by John Krakauer's 1996 book, Into the Wild, and earlier today, authorities airlifted it out of its resting place in Alaska. In the book, Chris McCandles, a college graduate hitchhiked across America. He ended up dying of starvation in this same bus, which was reportedly abandoned in the area in the 1960s.

McCandles' story has inspired hundreds of people since to come and look at the bus where he died. City council members of the Denali Borough, which the bus is technically in, have requested that the bus be removed for years.

Earlier this year, local authorities had to rescue 5 Italian tourists from the area around the bus. A tourist from Belarus died in the area in 2019.

The area itself is marked by unpredictable weather, as well as poor satellite service – which makes it hard for people who don't know the area at all, particularly when it gets dark (the bus is roughly 40 kilometres away from the Parks highway) According to the Guardian, the bus had been used by a construction company from Fairbanks, the nearest town, at some point to bus employees to work in the area.

Local authorities have long since called for the bus to be removed from the area, as they fear that it leads people to put themselves in danger. He lived in it for 114 days, writing in a journal about his experience, before he passed away.

The bus became famous after the book came out in 1996, which was a bestseller, and after two movies came out in the decades since, and people have since called for it to be auctioned off to raise money for charity.

Now, it's been taken away somewhere safe for storage, which probably means that diehards won't have a chance to get their hands on a piece at an auction any time soon – perhaps it's for the best.