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.
◄ The Chelsea Hotel, New York City Maureen and I spent four days in New York City in early October – she flew in from Milan, Italy, I met her from the Iguassu Falls in Brazil. We met at The Chelsea Hotel, if there’s an iconic hotel in New York this has to be it. We...
I visited Bulgaria twice in recent years and enjoyed both visits so much that I recently returned, with Maureen and a group of friends. We flew in to Sofia with Wizz Air from London, travelled by land between the two cities – regrettably by minibus rather than train –...
I’ve certainly had some travel delays and diversions this year, by sea, by rail and by air, troubles have popped up for every means of travel. A trans-Pacific cruise (yes, me on a cruise ship!) from Yokohama in Japan to Seattle in the USA got delayed and diverted, ...
It’s a British National Trail, the only one to follow a river and definitely a river worth following. From its source west of Oxford it runs for 184 miles (294km) through the Cotswolds, to Oxford and on past iconic English names like Abingdon and Windsor and then thro...
Milan was the end of my Madrid, Barcelona, Gent, Tarn River, Cassis, Monaco, Genoa European circuit, most of my European travel by train. I flew back to London with ITA, the latest out-of-bankruptcy recreation of Alitalia, Italy’s multi-bankrupted airline. Never have ...
I heard plenty of bear stories on my recent travels in Alaska and Montana – you’re chased up a tree by a bear, how do you know if it’s a black bear or a brown bear? If the bear climbs up the tree after you in order to kill you it’s a black bear. If the bear just stays...
▲ A jumble of Lego I’ve certainly been catching up with art in London, starting with the Ai Weiwei Making Sense exhibit at the Design Museum in Kensington – too late if you haven’t already seen it, it’s closed. There’s a fascinating linkage between huge numbers of ...
I started in Madrid and Barcelona, celebrating Lonely Planet’s 50th birthday for GeoPlaneta who publish LP guides in Spanish. Then it was Gent in Belgium for a bookshop talk with Atlas & Zanzibar. A canoe trip on the Tarn River in the south of France was followed ...
My architect neighbour Barry Munday had recently gone on an architectural tour of the city and I decided to make it a stepping stone from my Tarn River Canoeing trip – Cassis – Monaco – Genoa – to meeting Maureen for an operatic excursion in Milan. Things didn’t start...
After my Tarn River canoeing trip I had four nights before meeting Maureen – for an operatic excursion – in Milan. I spent two nights in Cassis and the plan was a night in Monaco followed by a night in Genoa, all connected by train. Everything soon went wrong. . Fir...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013