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.
▲ With some friends we spent a week at Lorne, a popular seaside resort on the Great Ocean Road about 140km from Melbourne. Lots of things haven’t changed at all, like the wonderful views along the road. This is the mouth of the St George River, just to the west ...
Grapefruit, Active Control Control, Google’s Self-Driving Car Yes even buying grapefruit can present you with tech challenges. My local supermarket has recently had grapefruit labelled Israeli (on the shefl) which turned out to be Australian (according to the stick...
I’m a firm believer that you often learn a lot more about a place by exploring it than you ever will by sitting at a desk and reading briefings. Particularly if they come from somebody like the CIA. Indonesia Etc certainly proves that although it definitely helps that...
Some days you scan the morning news and the sheer hypocrisy and idiocy of our political leaders simply stuns you. My last posting was over the gall of political leaders turning up in France to march for free speech while, back home, they were busy torturing, jailing, ...
As Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University, summed it up: ‘Glad so many world leaders could take time off jailing and torturing journalists and dissidents to march for free expression in France.’ Photo: Raif Badawi © Juan Osborne for Amnesty Internati...
I’ve run through my favourite theatre, films, hotels and books of 2014 – now on to the restaurants.▲ Ivan Justo in Havana The best – amazingly the year’s most interesting dining experiences were in Havana. A batch of places with interesting food, interesting décor ...
I’ve run through my favourite theatre, films and hotels of 2014. Here are some of the book favourites: Travel Books – I met William Blacker while I was in Transylvania last year, so reading Along the Enchanted Way, his colourful account of his love affair with Roma...
I've covered film and theatre, now it's the hotels of 2014. Industrial Chic in the US – it’s a currently popular theme and there were three notable hotels in the category. First of all Ace Hotel in New York (20 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001) Coming back to W29th St...
I’ve covered films, now the theatrical highlights of the year from Melbourne, London and New York: Britain: politics & the royal family – Handbagged was kind of Audience.2, ie the weekly meetings between the Queen and her Prime Minister, but just the one PM, Ma...
I'm going to run through my movie going (about two dozen of them), plays at the theatre (similar number), interesting hotels, interesting restaurants and anything else I can think of. Best hotel film – Grand Budapest Hotel – wonderful – which was pretty much the s...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013