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.
At the Jaipur Literary Festival in India last month I heard John Kampfner speak about his book Freedom for Sale, subtitled ‘how we made money and lost our liberty.’ The book takes eight countries – Singapore, China, Russia, the UAE, India, Italy, Britain and the USA –...
It’s one of the most interesting books I’ve read recently, the impact of the ‘beauty and terror’ of science on the romantic age, from the late 1700s through the early 1800s. I’ve always been fascinated by Joseph Banks, the young, rich and endlessly inquisitive gentlem...
Maureen and I went back to school in London this week. Teach First is an innovative campaign that puts young university graduates on a fast track teaching programme which propels them into often challenging school environments. Maureen and I went along to talk about h...
Maureen and I are in Mumbai for the launch of the Indian edition of the Lonely Planet magazine. The UK edition launched 12 months ago and our partners BBC-Worldwide are launching more editions around the world including – on Friday 29 January – in India. So we'...
Way back in 1973 Maureen and I published the first Lonely Planet guidebook. We were living in a basement flat in the Paddington, a suburb of Sydney. That's Maureen 37 years ago at the kitchen table where we put together that first book. She's still a Dylan fan. &nb...
I visited the country in 2008 and despite the many problems the Caribbean nation faced I had an extraordinarily interesting time there and never felt unsafe. Even when I had to find a ride back to my hotel in Port-au-Prince on the back of a motorcycle taxi in the ear...
▲ My laptop on the table at the place we stayed, the view out the window The year’s travels for Maureen and I kicked off with a trip with some friends to Bruny Island. Go to Hobart, the capital city of Australia’s island state Tasmania. Drive south from Hobart f...
In 1983 New York City’s Hudson River got a ‘Riverkeeper,’ someone to keep an eye on the health of the river. They make sure companies don’t dump stuff into it, builders don’t shove up ugly and inappropriate buildings beside it and that the river is looked after for ev...
I've been posting some 'end of 2009' lists in an assortment of categories, starting with Aerial Views, then Hotels, Other Transport, Music, Cars & Drives, Galleries & Museums, Books, Animals & Wildlife, Photographs and finally Projects, Politics & Prot...
It will be years before the millions of Bajaj scooters on the roads of India all disappear, but in March 2010 the last scooter will roll off the Bajaj production line. The company intends to concentrate on motorcycle manufacture with the aim of overtaking Honda as I...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013