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.
At the beginning the year I posted about some of the birds I’ve seen around my house in Australia. Including a baby blackbird which departed the courtyard nest on New Year’s Day. From my study if I look beyond the computer screen I’m looking at now I can see into the ...
The ‘which one is right’ discussion seems to be having another round, as Boeing ramps up 787 production and observers comment that nobody seems to be ordering more A380s. Four engines is two engines too many seems to be the ‘A380 doesn’t work’ message. But every fligh...
I travelled through Shanxi Province in China recently, kicking off in Beijing and continuing through Taiyuan, Pingyao, Datong and back to Beijing with assorted excursions in particular to the amazing Buddhist caves at Yungang just outside Datong. ▲ Earlier this y...
There’s so much international bad news out there it’s a delight to have some good news and, from a surprising place. In February 2015 the International Cricket Council’s Cricket World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand. The 10 big teams of international cric...
▲ Maureen in Antarctica in 1997. When Lonely Planet published its first Antarctica guide in 1996 it felt like a pioneering project. In fact I remember having to work hard to convince some people in the company that it was a feasible idea. Were there really enough...
▲ I like this one! A colourful Chinese fixie. While I was in San Francisco earlier in the month I noted that share bikes had arrived in the Bay Area. And there were some interesting bike trends around. From there I flew to Beijing, enjoying some wonderful views o...
▲ I like the straightforward nature of Chinese signs, perhaps they’re not so abrupt in Chinese, but translated into English they come across in a very direct fashion. Like this one. ◄ Or this ‘clean my room’ hotel door hanger at my hotel in Taiyuan, no messing ar...
The final leg of my little China trip was to take the bus from Datong back to Beijing – where I started – and catch a flight to Bangkok (just for the night) and on to Denpasar in Bali to meet Maureen for the Ubud Writers Festival. ▲ At the Datong bus station I wa...
I’ve always said the greatest regret of my travelling life has been that I went to Afghanistan in 1972 and did not travel north of Kabul to Bamiyan to see the great Buddha statues. When I did get there in 2006 it was too late, the Taliban had destroyed them in 2001. ...
▲ Datong has the biggest Nine Dragon Wall in China. It’s impressive, this is dragon number 7. I flew in to China from San Francisco to Beijing, took another flight to Taiyuan, continued by train to Pingyao, made a little bicycle side trip out to the Shangluin Tem...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013