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 love absurd travel suggestions – ones you read and you think ‘where on earth did that come from?’ The Australian newspapers The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald featured a travel enquiry:
• If the only flight option is Ryanair, should we ditch that destination?
A couple were looking at a visit to Sardinia (good idea), but were contemplating scrapping the whole plan if it required flying with Ryanair. Michael Gebicki, the paper’s ‘Tripologist,’ answered the query with an absolute straight face, suggesting the possibility of flying with Wizz Air (now there is an airline I have had really bad experiences with) or taking a seven to eight hour ferry ride (well that could be fun), but never hinting at why anybody might hate Ryanair so much that they’d abandon a trip rather than board one of Michael O’Leary’s 737s.
Over the years I’ve taken Ryanair on quite a few occasions and they’ve always done exactly what they promised, got you there safely and relatively comfortably (OK the seats don’t recline, big deal for short flights?), didn’t lose my luggage and ran to schedule. The only Ryanair flight I’ve taken which was somewhat delayed was totally down to bad weather, you could see it out the window, and the pilot kept us informed on why things weren’t going to plan. Something which I’ve had too much experience of not happening on other airlines. And of course, underline this, Ryanair are cheap. Sometimes amazingly cheap.
▲ Equally important Ryanair – or rather Michael O’Leary – are often hilariously funny. Take their recent dispute with Elon Musk. Mr Tesla got angry with Ryanair for not installing Starlink Wi-Fi access on their aircraft. O’Leary suggested Musk was an idiot and ran a ‘Big Idiot’ seat sale. Wonderful. It’s not surprising The Economist suggested Ryanair might be the world’s most successful airline.
Then, at the other end of the cost spectrum, there’s Remote Travel. Now I have never taken a Remote Travel trip, but I’m on their mailing list and their trips often look fantastic. And often look absurd! Check their 15-day Everest Base Camp trip, a mere US$29,000 out of Kathmandu. I’ve done the Everest Base Camp trip and had a wonderful time, but certainly not in the comfort Remote Travel can offer. Take their trip and if at some point along the route up to the base camp your feet get a bit tired you snap your fingers and a helicopter pops down to save you walking for the rest of the afternoon. Even if you’re not in the market for helicopter hiking check their website, the pictures are terrific.
Uluru (aka Ayers Rock back in the day) – my multiple visits – I was back to Uluru in April 2025, with a family group, 17 of us, down to newborn baby Molly (definitely her first visit), Veda (aged 6) and assorted others, some on their first visit, some not. For me it w...
Recently I suggested that I hope I never have to go back to Bali. I simply never want to sit through another hour of Balinese gridlock. The traffic is impossible, insufferable, intolerable. When you get to your destination you basically do not want to leave. A quick t...
▲ Southern Ocean Lodge & Hanson Bay Maureen and I spent four luxurious days – and nights – at the remote (and luxurious!) Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island off the Australian state of South Australia over New Year 2008-2009. Eleven years later on 3 Januar...
My recent Bali retreat mainly circled around travel writers and their Bali-related books, including Bill Dalton’s classic Indonesia Handbook and my own South-East Asia on a Shoestring, but other authors also featured. ◄ The Painted Alphabet – A mythical story of Ba...
The boring, too often repeated, questions I field all the time are ‘what’s your favourite place – followed by what’s the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened to you – and then where do you never want to go to again.’ Recently I’ve been hearing from friends who ha...
▲ Liz Trump & Liz Truss All the media has been noting the comparisons. Trump on his knees before the US bond market traders was precisely the same outcome as Britain’s 49-day-prime minister Liz Truss falling out with the UK bond market. I noted the blue plaque ...
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – that’s the state of Victoria in Australia, capital city Melbourne – is ‘the single most valuable literary award in the country’. The winner takes away A$100,000 as the big prize, plus another A$25,000 because they first have t...
I thought I’d added Bali to my ‘not going there again’ list, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia. I’m putting Bali on that list because the traffic is so absurdly intolerable and despite tourist money flooding in for decades the Indonesians have done nothing about it. ...
Far be it from me to be Anti-Woke, although in an all gender toilet in a restaurant in Bali recently an informal poll (somebody else was taking it) there was general agreement that the women would prefer a women’s toilet and the men would prefer a men’s. If there had ...
◄ ▲ There’s something about statues of despots, eventually somebody wants to pull them down. The fictional gold statue of Donald Trump which pops up in the Gaza Trump spoof video looks like a prime candidate for toppling. Doesn’t it look remarkably like ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013