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.
Melbourne has a new subway line – the Metro Tunnel – running through five new stations and currently having a soft opening, before the schedule launches full tilt on 1 February 2026. The new Parkville Station will probably be the most useful new station, since it’s at the University of Melbourne which badly needed a handy Metro station.
▲ The Town Hall Station
The two new central city stations might look slightly redundant since the Town Hall Station is only a couple of hundred metres from Flinders St Station and the State Library Station is right beside the Melbourne Central Station. In fact you might find it easier to enter the State Library Station from Melbourne Central rather than from its own entrance. The Metro Tunnel line, however, runs in a different direction than the other lines through Flinders St and Melbourne Central.
Unfortunately to use the new line you still need the horrible old Myki Card. Transport Victoria have announced that they are introducing ‘tap and go’ technology to Melbourne. Tomorrow? No, they are testing it in 2026 and at some point in the future you’ll actually be able to use it. But didn’t they start testing it in 2023 at some stations? Well yes they did, but clearly three years of testing wasn’t enough, there’s more testing to be rolled out in 2026
◄ My hated Myki Card
Hasn’t anybody asked them about this before? Well yes, for one person I asked Transport Victoria why we couldn’t use contactless cards in Melbourne when London introduced the technology in 2014. So that’s 10 years ago.
And I did get an answer, ‘we’re working on it and hope to introduce it soon.’ Which in Melbourne seems to be in 10 years time. So for over 10 years I’ve been able to use my Australian ANZ credit card to pay for public transport in London, England. But not in Melbourne, Australia. Absurd isn’t it?
Once upon a time Melbourne was a regular ‘most liveable city in the world’ title holder. How could you be a ‘most liveable city’ and at the same time operate the world’s most-visitor-unfriendly-travel-card? I suggested that in 2013 and 13 years later my opinion hasn’t changed. Never mind, the new Metro Tunnel Line reportedly took lots of lessons from London’s very popular Elizabeth Line. In London I often use the Elizabeth Line even if it means travelling a bit further because it’s so fast and convenient. Perhaps Melbourne can also learn from London how to get rid of the Myki Card.
▲ The Elizabeth Line at Bond St.in London
Since it opened in 2022 the Elizabeth Line quickly became the busiest railway line in the UK although technically it’s not part of the London Underground network. It runs out to Heathrow Airport – but so does the Piccadilly Line – and even further to Reading. It’s popular and has won architectural awards as well as being so busy. Check my August 2024 posting about riding the London Tube.
There’s hardly a better known travel name in the USA than Rick Steves, whether it’s for his travel guidebooks, the European tours he leads or his regular television appearance. So it’s a pleasant surprise to encounter another younger Rick Steves and I contributed a co...
All three forms of transport featured in my 2024 travels and I posted a blog on my my favourite tube stations around the London underground train system. ▲ Trains no longer stop in Marceline, Missouri although lots of visitors come there for the Walt Disney Museum ...
Well the big one which I really wanted to happen was the end of the Russian war on Ukraine. Trump announced he’d end the war in one day. He’s been at the White House now for seven days and the war in Ukraine? Still going on as far as I can see? Then there’s the Gul...
My 2024 travels featured walking in Australia (The Three Capes Track in Tasmania) and England (The Thames Path). My English travels also took me to that very popular tourist county of Cornwall. Before arriving in England I visited three interesting African countries: ...
Despite thinking I really should avoid the USA I was back again in 2024 – after visits in 2022 and 2023 – and I’ve blogged on Charleston, Kansas City, St Louis and road-tripping across the state of Missouri. Although I did not get to the state of Kansas (I really thou...
▲ I met Bernd Tesch in Germany – Frankfurt Bookfair of course – back in 1977 (so 48 years ago) when he was promoting his first travel books. There have been many more since including, most recently, Australian Adventure Travel – Australien Abenteuer Reisen – 448 page...
My recent December 2024 visits to Kansas City and St Louis bracketed two road trips across the state of Missouri, not to be confused with the Indian hill station of Mussoorie which I visited in October. ▲ Travelling east – Charlotte at the wheel, Simon photographi...
Lonely Planet author Leif Pettersen’s writing interests clearly extend much further than his Romania gig with LP. Eight years ago I wrote a blog on his Backpacking with Dracula book, noting that it probably supplied way more information on Transylvania and Vlad Tepes ...
My December 2024 USA road trip took me from Kansas City (western edge of Missouri) to St Louis (eastern edge). From a half million population city to a quarter of a million (and declining?), but US city centre versus metropolitan boundaries numbers are always confusin...
So there’s the first thing that’s so surprising about Kansas City. It’s not in Kansas, it’s in Missouri, OK a bit of it sprawls across into Kansas, but most of it is in Missouri. Surprise two is it is so amazingly quiet. OK it’s the day after Thanksgiving, that might ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013