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.
First it’s underground to walk the blue trail in the Carlsbad Caverns. It’s easy to suffer limestone cave overkill, one stalagmite looks much like another, they all get dubbed with funny names and after a dozen or so the average non-enthusiast has probably had enough ...
In the morning we go nowhere, when I look under the hood in daylight I decide it’s probably wise to get the cooling problem fixed. My amateur diagnosis is a leaking heater hose and it turns out to be correct. It takes a couple of hours, but only $46.54, to have new ho...
My hangover isn’t as bad as it should be and after packing our freshly washed clothes (thank God for friends’ washing machines) we set off for El Paso. Leaving Tucson we drive by the Davis-Monthan air force base where surplus military aircraft are mothballed, just in ...
We get slightly sidetracked en route to Tucson by a factory outlet shopping centre by the freeway. America is still the world’s great bargain centre for clothes and shoes and new Levis all round seem like a good idea. In Tucson we stay with Lonely Planet author Rob Ra...
For the second time the Caddy won’t start. I think it might be a result of parking it on steep cambers but this time I know how to handle it. A short backtrack takes us to Walnut Canyon National Monument, another series of Sinagua ruins, neatly situated around the wal...
Caddy homage started early today when a Scotsman staying at our hotel pronounced it ‘a cracker’. With another tankful of premium on board we headed east along the South Rim Drive and out of the park. Sandwiches at Cameron and a detour past the Sinagua Indian ruins ...
Someone’s fallen over the canyon edge and the walk down into the canyon has been closed for the day Maureen announced. Oh no, I said. April fool! So we did walk, down the Kaibab Trail to Cedar Ridge and about an hour beyond. It’s listed by the park authorities a...
I think I’d better drop that line about things not working out as expected. Today would probably have worked out just as expected if I hadn’t asked the best way to the I-93 as we were leaving the hotel. Perhaps the advice to take the I-25 towards LA and cut across to ...
We went nowhere. Las Vegas was such a big hit with the kids a rest day was officially declared and we watched more volcano eruptions and pirate battles, did our laundry, bought a case of oil (let’s be honest, it burns it) and caught a show in the evening. Vegas sho...
From Stove Pipe Wells we meandered through Death Valley with the short climb up Zabriskie Point, drive through 20 Mule Team Canyon and Artist’s Canyon, walk through Golden Canyon, lunch at Furnace Creek and make the obligatory stop at the lowest point in the USA, Bad ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013