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.
I’ve recorded several podcasts, interviews, conversations recently.
At London Business School Maureen and I recorded Journeys, a conversation with Rajesh Chandy the Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Developing World at the Wheeler Institute. People seemed to enjoy it, someone suggested that we ‘looked like two teenagers our to start an exciting adventure,’ not business like at all.
With Tyrel Cameron Eskelson I talked on his Interlocutor podcast about my travel life, starting in Pakistan when I was a small child right up to travel in recent weeks and for the rest of 2025.
Over the years I’ve taken plenty of photographs in subway systems around the world. Here’s the state-of-the-art Hong Kong MTR system just last week. Here’s an example of the artwork at the aviation-focussed Metro Mayakovskaya station in Moscow. Click here for m...
Last week I was in Macau speaking at a hotel conference, most of the conference was numbers and business, but my talk was light relief, hotels I’ve loved and hated, whether they were cheap – the Chhaya Hotel in Battambang, Cambodia in 2005 was US$4 and just fine. Cli...
No matter how many times you go there there’s always something new. On my way to and from Macau last week I had three nights in Hong Kong – on Lamma Island, in Central and in Kowloon. Of course one thing never seems to change in Hong Kong, the Star Ferry still shuttle...
Last week I was listening to Tim Flannery as the ‘curator’ of the Deakins Lectures, a series of 10 lectures, addresses and discussions on the subject of climate change. Tim is a man of many hats from running the South Australian Museum to being Australian of the year ...
Last week in Melbourne, Australia I went to a series of lectures, discussions and Q&A sessions on climate change. Presented as the 2010 instalment of the Deakins Lectures, named after Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, the programme took place under...
The 2010 Global Peace Index has been released and the most peaceful country in the world? No change from last year, it’s New Zealand followed by Iceland. The other four Scandinavian countries also make it into the top 10. The list now includes 149 countries, 99% of th...
My last travel blog was on big trees – the giant tingle and karri trees of Western Australia – both native trees. This time it’s an ‘exotic’ (an introduced species), 281 elm trees at Bacchus Marsh in Victoria, a country town about 60km west of Melbourne, towards Adela...
Spicks & Specks is an interesting rock music quiz program on Australia’s ABC network and last Wednesday night one of the questions was what musical instrument did Léon Theremin invent? Why the theremin of course. Now I knew that because back in 2003 I spoke – h...
I’ve been catching a lot of events at the Wheeler Centre in recent weeks and I’ll certainly be there for the Deakin Lectures starting on Sunday 6 June. Named after Alfred Deakin, Australia’s second prime minister, they’re an annual series of lectures and discussions o...
Bike share systems are being rolled out in more and more major cities around the world. ‘White bicycles’ were tried in England in the hippy ‘60s, but they were all soon stolen. Years ago I tried a more modern incarnation in Copenhagen (make them ugly, instantly reco...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013