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.
I spent a week in Japan in September 2005, speaking about sustainable tourism at the Nagoya World Fair, visiting Minkaku and its associated National Museum of Ethnology near Osaka and dropping in to Tokyo. The National Museum of Ethnology in Sizenbunkaen Park outsi...
I left Singapore at the end of March 2005 to travel to Shanghai via Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and through China stopping in Macau for a travel conference and Hong Kong. I intended to stick to travel at surface level – buses, trains, boats, whatever came al...
I've had quite enough of Putuoshan after a few more hours wandering. Too many temples (some of which feel like they've been built just to fill in time for tourists) and far too many crowds of tourists. The white-cap brigade marches down one side...
Rather overrated, off the coast of Zhejiang and about 150km from Shanghai in a straight line, this island is supposed to offer a glimpse of Old China with colourful temples, arched bridges and fishing boats. In fact it offers a glimpse of New China tourism with multip...
Another grey day. Since I've arrived in China I've rarely seen blue sky. Is it the fearsome pollution New China is famous for? Or have I just hit a stretch of bad weather? Today it's actually raining, but usually it's simply grey, overcast without ever getting beyond ...
A big statue of Mao overlooks the main square in the centre of Fuzhou. There aren't many left - or perhaps there weren't actually that many to start with. In Eastern Europe, Lenin, Stalin and Marx were quietly taken down and hustled away, in Iraq Saddam was violently ...
Someone is looking after me today. I'm running late and all I know about my bus is that it will be outside the Kowloon Tong MTR (subway) station. I get there at 7.25 for the 7.30am departure and it's a big station with lots of exits. I sprint up the stairs at the firs...
I've got a final morning at the PATA conference, followed by lunch with some friends at Fernando's, a classic Portuguese seafood and barbecue place on the beach. I'm a little concerned about finding a taxi back towards the centre of Macau to catch the ferry to Hong Ko...
I'm in Macau for the Pacific Asia Travel Association's (PATA) annual conference, a get-together of people from airlines, hotels, tourist offices, tour operators, travel agents and assorted other travel people from all over the region. There are panel discussions a...
Today is the day I have to make it to Macau. And I do, but only just. At 8am I'm on the bus from Wuzhou to Zhaoqing, with about 30 seconds to spare. It's an interesting three-hour ride to this city, about halfway to Macau. Just before I arrive I discover that it ha...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013