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.
I’ve just posted on the Kim Jong Il Looking at Things phenomena, so I’ll post some things I’ve looked at recently , starting with New York and continuing to Naples and Paris. Without me in the picture! ◄ Walking to the theatre one night on our recent visit who shou...
I picked up a copy of the hardback book of Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, the spin off from João Rocha’s amazingly popular tumblr site of pictures of – well of Kim Jong Il looking at things. Everything from tanks to bras, soft drinks to radishes, tupperware to vodka. ...
Our recent Italy trip featured three interesting hotels. In Pistoia for the Dialoghi sull’uomo literary festival we stayed in the Hotel Patria, Via Cripi 8/12 – on the edge of the old town, friendly, efficient, stylishly old fashioned and with great views from our roo...
Having visited Capri and Naples reading one of the classic books on the city seemed like an excellent idea. Norman Lewis turned up in Naples in late 1943, immediately after the Armistice between Italy and the Allies was signed. He spent the next year in the city and h...
▲ A mosaic from Pompeii in the Museo Archeological Nazionale The third stop on my recent Italian trip, after Pistoia and the island of Capri, was Naples, that most down to earth of southern Italian cities. It’s a place which positively drips history, you can fe...
Half way between the big attractions of Florence and Pisa, the northern Italy town of Pistoia has some very worthwhile distractions of its own. I was there for the Pistoia Literary Festival and wandering the beautiful old town was a reminder, yet again, that Italy sim...
Way back in 1990 I worked on a very thorough revision of the Lonely Planet Japan guide and my regions included the Inland Sea, the island-dotted waters sandwiched between Honshu (Japan’s major island) to the north, Shikoku (the smallest of the four big islands) to the...
I'm off to France next week to help mark 20 years of Lonely Planet publishing in French. Recently I wrote the foreword to '1000 Idées de Vacances en France.' You can't get it in English, but here's my original - pre-translation - contribution. It’s first trips ...
Why have I never been to Capri, that island, much beloved of dolce vita jet setters of the ‘50s and ‘60s, off the coast from Naples in Italy? So finally Maureen and I got there for a few days, after my Pistoia Literary Festival gig and before a few days in Naples. ...
I was in Pistoia (half way between Pisa and Florence in Italy) on 25 May to talk travel, other festival speakers included Colin Thubron, I enjoyed To a Mountain in Tibet, his circuit of Mt Kailash book last year when I was involved with the Dolman travel writing award...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013