The thing about "Wild" is that she was a pretty lame backpacker, but we all started out lame at some point, I think. Personally, I have moved on from being lame but who knows about her, I'm not sure she ever picked up a backpack again.
What I did find moving (and I realize there are those who don't agree with me) is that her personal story was so intense. She sank so deep in the abyss: Losing her mom, her despair and self-destruction, etc. I thought the book conveyed that very well. For anyone to cope with it by putting on a backpack and hiking 400 miles when you don't know crap about it, I found very profound. As a how-to guide or as a depiction of the glories of the mountains and nature, well, it was sadly lacking (especially the movie, which looked like it was filmed entirely next to a road). But I didn't read or watch it for its depiction of backpacking, because no book or movie can ever hold a candle to one's own personal experience out in nature.
Now I have to put my pitch in for what I personally think is maybe the best book about long distance hiking I have ever read : "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen. Wow! Double Wow!! A story, again, of terrible and tragic loss, and of a trip to save oneself, into the wild and glorious mountains. But much better written and much more truly epic and inspiring than "Wild". Makes me want to go deep into the mountains of Nepal and deep into myself.