"I love to travel comfortably, visit hospitable countries, stay in comfortable hotels and enjoy delicious food. Yet the places that leave you open-mouthed, the ones that take your breath away, are oft...
Tony Wheeler
Tony Wheeler is the co-founder, together with his wife Maureen, of the travel and guide publisher Lonely Planet. They founded the company in 1973 in order to publish Across Asia on the Cheap, the story of their 1972 overland trip from London to Australia. They spent the following year travelling around South-East Asia and in 1975 published their second book, South-East Asia on a Shoestring. From those early guidebooks Lonely Planet grew to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher with offices in London and Oakland, California as well as the head office in Melbourne, Australia. In 2007 BBC Worldwide acquired a 75% stake in Lonely Planet for £88 million and then in 2011 acquired the remaining 25% for £42 million.
Tony Wheeler is a board member of the Global Heritage Fund, an organisation working to protect and develop archaeological sites in the developing world. His latest book is Tony Wheeler’s Dark Lands (2010), the Italian translation of which (entitled Fuori rotta. Otto viaggi oltre la linea d'ombra) will be published by Lonely Planet Italia in the spring of 2014.