By the time Tony co-founded Lonely Planet Publications in 1973, he already had the travel bug. And ever since, travel and discovery have been at the heart of his life and career.
There are lots of places still to visit on my travel bucket list and Greenland is certainly one of them. In recent weeks Taco Trump has emphasised that it could be important to get there sooner rather than later. After all if Trump succeeds in invading Greenland we could find a visit to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, would be rather like visiting Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota. You could end up being shot and killed by ICE thugs sent in by Trump. A year ago I posted a blog – I’m Not Going There Anymore – about assorted places I should be avoiding, like the USA.
▲ you don’t want to meet these sort of people in the USA, the unmasked thug in the centre is Trump’s man Gregory Bovino and yes he does indeed look like Lockjaw, the villain in the movie One Battle after Another. And yes, that is his ‘Nazi cosplay coat’ or, as California Governor Gavin Newsom puts it, it’s a coat that’s ‘Nazi-coded.’
▲ Although I’ve never been to Greenland at surface level I’ve certainly flown over it numerous times and it’s always spectacular. Flying between Northern Europe and the West Coast of North America – London to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco or Los Angeles for example – the routing takes you way north over Greenland, northern Canada, Hudson Bay. It’s always a spectacular flight.
▲ Another Greenland view
At surface level I’ve been to assorted northern destinations not unrelated to Greenland. Head east from southern Greenland and you could encounter Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Trump, whose geography expertise is not too good, tends to get Greenland and Iceland mixed up. And the Faroes are also Danish property, so watch out, Trump might decide he’d like to grab them too. Head east from northern Greenland and you’ll come to Svalbard, but that’s part of Norway, another place that tends to confuse Mr Trump. Further south I managed to reach L’Anse aux Meadows at the north-western tip of Newfoundland, that was a Viking outstation for Greenland when the Vikings – rather than the Danes – ran the place.
▲ I have been to the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater in Australia, flown over and driven to it along the Tanami Track from Alice Springs. If you’d like a bucket list of other amazing meteorite craters check Sites of Impact.
▲ The 10 craters it covers includes the New Quebec (aka the Pingualuit or Chubb Crater), a long way from anywhere in Canada, handily placed between Hudson Bay and Greenland. (image of the Pingualuit Crater from Wikimedia)
There are lots of places still to visit on my travel bucket list and Greenland is certainly one of them. In recent weeks Taco Trump has emphasised that it could be important to get there sooner rather than later. After all if Trump succeeds in invading Greenland we co...
Melbourne has a new subway line – the Metro Tunnel – running through five new stations and currently having a soft opening, before the schedule launches full tilt on 1 February 2026. The new Parkville Station will probably be the most useful new station, since it’s at...
Melbourne photographer Paul Dodd asked me to take part in his photo project The Chair. I was one of 40-odd subjects, each photographed in his studio, seated on the same chair, under identical lighting conditions, and captured in timeless black and white. We were encou...
The last couple of years – travelling up the coast of Albania, around Greece close to Athens and by sea from Athens to Corfu, a Mediterranean stretch of Algeria – has made me think how much of a circuit of the Mediterranean I have managed to cover over the years. Li...
No question, a highlight of my 2025 travels was my visit to the Greek island of Hydra. I definitely should have read Charmian Clift’s Peel Me a Lotus, her love letter to Hydra, before my visit, but no problem, it worked equally well reading it back home in Australia, ...
In 1930, philosopher Will Durant met a man who said he was about to commit suicide unless someone gave him a good reason not to do so. This inspired Durant to contact 100 people involved in the arts, politics, religion and sciences to write what they felt life was all...
Australian artist and architect Robert Powell died on Ko Samui in Thailand in 2020. Although he is probably little recognised in Australia many visitors to Nepal – not just Australians – will have a Robert Powell print of one of the country’s iconic buildings on a wal...
Sam Dalrymple, still in his ‘20s, is the son of well-known writer William Dalrymple, and Shattered Lands: Five Partitions & the Making of Modern Asia is easily the most interesting historic – through to current events – title I’ve read this year. I’m also surprise...
◄ Until 28 January 2026 the British Library has an intriguing exhibition about ‘secret maps.’ Maureen and I were involved in getting the exhibition off the ground and I’m there with the Secret Maps poster at the British Library. As the library’s website announces i...
I was briefly in Northern Ireland in June 2025 for a family wedding – Maureen’s family – there was one in 2024 as well. My plan to walk the spectacular Gobbins Cliff Path, north of Belfast, while I was there fell through because the walk was closed due to a 'recent ro...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013