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.
It was appropriate that just before my recent visit to Albania I read Enver Hoxha's Long Shadow, John Watkins’ illuminating look at the country he first visited back in 1987 and then compared it to Albania today. Enver Hoxha, Albania’s despotic dictator, died in 1985,...
▲ I visited Albania in 2006 and wrote about it in my now-well-out-of-date book Bad Lands. I trekked back to Albania in September 2024, accompanied this time by an international group of friends. Wow, things have changed. In Skanderberg Square in the centre of the cap...
▲ I like statues of national heroes popping up far from home. Near my home in London this statue of the Ukraine national hero St Volodymyr (aka Vladimir the Great) has been flower bedecked recently as the struggle with Russia grinds on. It's on the corner of Holla...
I’m chairing the panel of judges for the 2012 Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award, the annual award for the best British travel book. I’ve covered the first three contenders in an earlier blog. The next four on my reading list from the entrants: When in Rome – Mat...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013