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.
In Lost Continent, his hilarious dig at the midwest, Des Moines escapee Bill Bryson declares that the city is the most powerful hypnotic known to man, escape is near impossible. We must have got a mild dose as for some reason it’s nearly noon before we’re out on the ...
It’s an unexciting drive from Chicago to Des Moines but dinner certainly makes up for any boredom en route. We go to Spaghetti Works, a popular Des Moines restaurant, get a table outside, order food and a bottle of wine and then Maureen and I go inside to sample the s...
What a great city this is. It’s clear we could spend the rest of our time right here, so instead we set out to do what we can in just one day. What we can starts, for Maureen and I, with a jog along Lake Michigan. For Kieran it means getting a Chicago Bulls top. Check...
Motown has one final attraction we can’t ignore and that, of course, is Hitsville USA, the Motown Museum. Tamla Motown records shifted to Los Angeles in 1972 but kept their first Detroit office and recording studio. The company’s extraordinarily rapid growth is quite ...
There’s some sort of beautician’s convention going on at our hotel and half the people eating breakfast look as if they’ve spent two hours perfecting their hair and makeup, earnest conversations about manicures waft through the air. It feels like the Douglas Adams’ sp...
The rain pauses for my morning run, up beyond the Horseshoe Falls to have a look at an old scow which broke loose from its towboat and floated down towards the falls with two men on board. A stone’s throw from the brink it ran aground and the two men spent a sleepless...
I’m beginning to believe there is some sort of curse of the Wheelers that ensures whenever we visit notable waterfalls not only does water fall over the fall it also falls from the sky. A few years ago we visited Africa’s Niagara, the Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe/Za...
The new brake linings arrive around noon but it’s 4 pm by the time they’re fitted and we finally escape. This repair costs $130 so our en route repair costs are still less than $200. We drive straight through to Niagara Falls, find a motel and go out to eat. Just sout...
It’s not the wheel bearing I quickly decide in the morning. Once everything has cooled down the wheel is turning smoothly again. The cause is more likely a locking front brake and the reason for that is probably because I forgot my California Cadillac expert’s warning...
We roll south out of Massachusetts into Connecticut and then turn west into New York state, cross the Hudson River and stop for lunch in that centre for peace and love, Woodstock. Twenty five years on from the rockfest that made it famous Woodstock is doing just fine ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013