AN interview WITH LONELY PLANET’S creator

Updated: 08/04/19 | August 4th, 2019

In 2019, one of the keynote speakers at TravelCon was Tony Wheeler, the creator of Lonely Planet. I’ve been fortunate sufficient to chat with Tony a few times over the years, as well as I was honored when he agreed to speak at our conference. With TravelCon19 in the books, I believed it would be a great time to re-share this interview with Tony from 2011 so we might step back in time as well as see just what has altered in the market because then.

Starting a travel blog is a great deal of work. however it likewise has its perks. one of those perks?

Meeting incredible people.

Running a travel blog has enabled me to satisfy remarkable people from all around the globe.

But it’s likewise provided me a possibility to satisfy my travel heroes.

I’ve had drinks with Pauline Frommer, satisfied Rick Steves, ended up being buddies with Johnny Jet as well as Matt Gross (the former economical Traveler), hung out with Rolf Potts, as well as chatted about flights with George Hobica, just to name a few. I even got to satisfy Cheryl Strayed earlier this year.

Having been blogging as well as traveling for over a decade now, the listing of remarkable people I’ve satisfied has grown long — as well as I’m extremely grateful for the chances I have been given. one of those chances occurred back in 2011.

As my blog began to grow, I was getting much more as well as much more press attention. One day, I got an email from Lonely Planet. They wished to put me in touch with their founder, Tony Wheeler.

I was stunned.

This was a big opportunity.

After I calmed down, I sent Tony an email.

We exchanged a few emails back as well as forth as well as he agreed to do an interview for the blog (I confess, I gushed a bit about his influence on my travels. I couldn’t assist it!)

Here is that original interview, from 2011. A great deal has altered because then — yet so much is still the same!

Nomadic Matt: Your guide to Southeast Asia changed guidebooks as well as travel. It produced a mass-market as well as accessibility that didn’t exist before. exactly how does having such a huge effect on travel make you feel?
Tony Wheeler: Great. Looking back, we were there at the begin of something huge happening. travel was ending up being much more economical as well as accessible, so there was a demand for destination information. That’s exactly how Lonely world started, with people asking us for our suggestions for destinations since we’d been there as well as done it. This led to the development of our very first guidebook, across Asia on the Cheap.

There’s really a book about to be published by a man who tries to travel around the region today utilizing one of our original books, Southeast Asia on a Shoestring (now 36 years old). Amazingly, he discovers great deals of locations either still in operation or run by the kids or even grandchildren of the people we encountered when we researched the guide in 1974. travel is continuously altering as well as developing, however the requirement for trusted, precise info about destinations is still there. much more people travel even more as well as longer as well as in different ways. Our guides continue to offer the tried as well as evaluated suggestions that our very first guide, across Asia on the Cheap, was established on.

Lonely world is thought about the Holy bible for young backpackers as well as long-lasting travelers. It’s the book they utilize far much more than any type of other guide out there. Is that the market you had always really hoped for, provided that was the style of travel you started with?
We started out doing books for people just like us, young as well as penniless. Obviously, we’ve altered throughout the years as well as so have the books! however although we cover the upscale travel just as much as backpacking these days, I still have a genuine soft area for the backpackers — they’re travel pioneers, they’re frequently pioneering new routes as well as new methods of travel, as well as let’s deal with it, there’s no travel experience like the first-time travel experience.

I reckon gap-year travelers discover much more in that year than they did in their last five years of school. Or the next years of university! I likewise like the tough-travel, off-the-beaten-track information, which is why I’ve delighted in myself utilizing our guide to Africa in the democratic Republic of Congo these past three weeks.

In the book The Beach, there is a line: “Once it’s in the Lonely Planet, it’s ruined.” That comment shows a feeling that Lonely world (and guidebooks in general) sterilize locations as well as turn them into traveler traps. exactly how do you react to such criticism?
The essential right here is that Lonely world guidebooks are just that — a guide. We motivate travelers to utilize our guides as a starting point, by offering them with the tools to produce their own adventures.Tourists will go to destinations regardless; we are just offering them with the tools to travel separately as well as put their traveler pounds back into the regional economy.

It has always been paramount to us that Lonely world encourages responsible, independent, as well as honest tourism. Our guides recommend travelers about the regional history, politics, culture, wildlife, as well as economic climate to ensure that they can get to the heart of the location as well as comprehend the destination they are visiting.

I have devoted my life to travel as well as am a strong believer in its benefits, both for the traveler as well as the regional neighborhood that they are visiting.

Travel broadens the mind by sharing cultures, language, as well as traditions. It is impossible to suggest that tourism doesn’t influence destinations, however there are numerous elements contributing to the growth of tourism, not least flight routes as well as the declining expense of travel.

Are there any type of elements of travel that have altered over the last 20 years that you DON’T like? Why?
A great deal of people will state the higher simplicity of travel, communication, as well as info have taken the romance out of travel, however I reckon things like Web cafés are just a new version of poste restante. There’ll be just as numerous tales of Web café meetings as well as romances as “sitting on the steps of the publish office reading long-lost letters.”

The saddest modification is a post-9/11 safety and security one. Of course, I dislike all the farting around with metal detectors as well as X-ray machines (and I might style a much better method of doing it than 90% of airports I pass through), however the most significant one is that you can’t go up on the flight deck anymore. While you never might on us airlines, elsewhere in the world if you asked well you might typically get invited as much as the flight deck to have a look over the pilot’s shoulder.

The one event I flew Concorde I increased the sharp end, as well as twice I even got to sit in on a landing of a 747.

On the flip side of that question, what do you see as the much more positive elements of exactly how travel has altered over the last 20 years?
Romance or not, I’d be lying if I stated I didn’t like the simplicity of doing things these days, whether it’s booking a hotel, getting a seat on a airplane in Congo or a train in Switzerland, as well as that you can download visa application develops instantly. (Iran was amazingly wired as well as useful in that respect the last time I went there.)

And that practically anywhere you can get a totally free or near-as-damn-it totally free regional SIM card for your phone is likewise amazing — so I’ve had my own phone number all over from Afghanistan to Zambia — as is ATM machines spitting out currency in the weirdest as well as many unlikely places.

Where do you see guidebooks going in the digital age?
It’s frequently stated there’s as much print as ever; it’s just not necessarily on paper anymore. I believe we’re going to keep on researching things: to do a great task you have to go there, you cannot research study a location from behind a desk or in front of a computer. however whether that “guidebook” will be a book or an iphone app, who knows?

What do you believe of travel blogs?
Great. the very best travel blogs publish such a riches as well as diversity of travel articles. It is a great neighborhood as well as it’s interesting to view it grow.

Do you believe there is a expert high quality to travel blogs that is on par with guidebooks?
Some of them. however then there are some great guidebooks as well as some crap ones as well.

Which blogs do you like? What are some examples of “good ones”?
I don’t comply with any type of blogs, however if I’m searching for something linked to some trip or location or concept I’m believing about then I frequently end up on somebody’s blog. The Congo trip I’ve just done was extremely mundane, however God, there are some fantastic Congo stories out there.

Like the one by a Belgian couple who slogged their method best across the country, all however destroying their Land Cruiser en path as well as putting it with the kind of hell Toyota might barely have dreamed up. as well as I’ve gone down lots of “roads” on Land Cruisers where, at the end, I believed “What a vehicle! Amazing!”

Why did you offer your stake in Lonely Planet?
We didn’t want to run it forever, as well as it was time for a change.

Now that you have offered Lonely Planet, exactly how are you keeping yourself busy?
Traveling! I’m working on a new travel book, as well as Lonely world keeps asking me to do some things.

So you are still included with LP? Is that as an advisory role, or do you have a special title?
A title? A role? Something I get paid for? No. however I compose a monthly column for the LP magazine, I seem to compose a great deal of intros/forewords/columns/etc. for assorted LP books, aswell as I’m still frequently asked to front for something, appear for something, etc. with LP. as well as for the rest of my life I’ll be “one of the people who started LP.”

And I’ll never be able to go anywhere without sending back corrections/additions/suggestions for the appropriate book. Incidentally, I never had an LP company card with a title or function on it.

If you have one piece of guidance for travelers, what would it be?
Go. as well as go somewhere interesting.
 

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