This summer, I listened to the audiobook of Wild while backpacking through the New Mexican desert. The year before that, I'd hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone, and as the book continued I realized I'd started just where Cheryl Strayed had, in the middle of the Mojave desert.

Over the past year and a half, I spent nine months living under a tarp in the wilderness. Each morning, I stuffed my belongings into my backpack—cheese, cookies, sleeping bag, headlamp, raincoat—then walked until dark. I crossed California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. It was…