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.
Back in 2006, right after it opened, I spent two days walking 42km on the Great Ocean Walk along the spectacular Victorian coast in the Otways. Back then I said I’d be back later in the year to finish the rest of the walk, another 60km. . ▲ It didn’t happen in 2...
If you’re at the right place and at the right time of day – lots of Australian wildlife is nocturnal – it’s often remarkably easy to encounter the critters and I certainly saw a few over the Christmas-New Year period. ◄ Starting with koalas – lots of wildlife you h...
Crazy, doomed, hopeless, wonderful – my first thoughts when I read about the very first Tour d’Afrique – 12,000km, four months, all the way from Cairo in Egypt to Cape Town in South Africa. It really is the Mt Everest of cycling. I didn’t realise that a few years late...
▲ Mosaics in the Archaeological Park in the Jordanian town of Madaba. I spent two weeks in Israel and Palestine just before Christmas 2011. You can check my reports on my travels in Palestine, the problems of Hebron, the Wall, an encouraging visit to Nazareth, ...
And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day. — Genesis 35:19-20 ▲ Rachel’s Tomb – perhaps 100 years ago? It had to be one of the weirdest f...
◄ Palestine is one of those unusual countries without a McDonalds and when the big brands aren’t present you can be pretty certain some strange replacements will pop up. Like Ramallah’s Stars & Bucks coffee shop, right in the centre of Palestine’s de facto capital...
▲ The Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth is supposed to be on the site of Mary’s home, where the Angel Gabriel appeared to announce that she might be a good virgin, but she was still going to have a baby. The church is a curious structure, plonked on top of t...
My Israel and Palestine travels took me to these two towns. Hebron conjures up the worst aspects of the Israeli-Palestine dispute, while Nazareth indicates that the two sides can live together. ▲ The wire mesh over this old city street in the centre of Hebron is...
I missed British comedian Mark Thomas’ ‘walking the wall’ performance when I was at the Edinburgh Festival in August, but I have done the next best thing, read Extreme Rambling, the book of his walk. Rambling is walking British fashion, A to B, not necessarily by ...
◄ My Israeli friend Ohad Sharav climbing out of the Makhtesh Katan or Small Crater in the Negev Desert. My travels in Israel and Palestine featured spells on three walking tracks. I’ve always felt that walking puts you in touch with the land at the right ...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013