The Lonely Planet Story: Once While Travelling

The highly readable Lonely Planet Story: Once While Travelling is a unique mix of autobiography, business history and travel book. It traces founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s personal story as well as the often-bumpy evolution of their travel guide business into the world’s largest independent travel publishing company. In 2007, the Wheelers shocked the publishing industry by selling to BBC worldwide. For the first time, they explain their reasons behind the sale, and their hopes for the future of the brand. Above all, their memoir reveals the spirit of adventure that has made them, according to the New York Daily Times, ‘the specialists in guiding weird folks to weird places’. Lonely Planet Publications was born in 1973 when the Wheelers self-published a quirky travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. This was quickly followed by what soon became the backpackers’ bible, South-East Asia on a Shoestring. Going boldly where no other travel publisher had ventured, they catered to a new generation of independent, budget-conscious travellers long before the advent of mass tourism.