Q&A with Lonely Planet’s Tony Wheeler

Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of catching up with Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet (along with his wife Maureen), at the Viator San Francisco office. Catch up on previous Viator blog posts about the sale of Lonely Planet to the BBC and the Travel Writer’s Dilemma.

If Tony Wheeler didn’t exist, we’d need to invent him. You’ll know Tony if you’ve ever hauled a backpack around the globe with only a fuzzy itinerary (Asia?? why not!) and a money belt stuffed full with everything except money. Along with shoes and toothbrush, the only other required piece of gear was the guidebook.

Inevitably it was a Lonely Planet guidebook.

Tony Wheeler is the co-founder of Lonely Planet (along with his wife, Maureen). Which makes Tony the godfather, granddaddy and don of travel. This is a man who’s set foot in nearly every country on the planet (Iraq? Check. North Korea? Check. East Timor? Check.) This is a man who knows travel.

Tony Wheeler in Afghanistan, at Christ-e-Sharif

His story is legendary. After arriving in Sydney in 1972, after a six month Asia overland trip from Europe, he had 27 cents left in his pockets. After numerous friends asked him for advice on making the same journey, he decided to publish a book. In 1973 Lonely Planet’s first title was published, Across Asia on the Cheap, documenting their trip from London to Australia. In 1975 they published their second title, South-East Asia on a Shoestring.

From those early guidebooks Lonely Planet grew into the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher – more than 500 titles in print, an award-winning website, a respected image library, television programming and video, more than 400 staff in Melbourne, London and Oakland (California). In 2007 the Wheelers sold a majority interest in Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the venerable BBC. Tony is still closely involved with the company. In 2009 he hit the road to film segments in Laos and Alaska with a crew from Lonely Planet TV.

Death of the guidebook? Premature

Viator: Is the guidebook dead? Or are reports of its death premature?

Tony Wheeler: The death of print is the wrong way to think of it. Print is everywhere. There are more words being published on paper than ever before. What’s changing is the guidebook – it’s not going to stay on paper for ever. It’s migrating to mobile phones, downloads (have a look at Lonely Planet’s pick-and-mix PDF downloads) and, of course, the internet. So the guidebook is definitely not dead.

Viator: So if the guidebook isn’t quite dead, what is the role of a printed guidebook in 2009?

Tony Wheeler: Think about a destination like Congo and Zaire and – the guidebook itself may be a little outdated – but the maps are helpful. And overall, there are not many guidebooks to Congo, so in that case a guidebook is invaluable.

Another example: Our Cycling in Italy title, it went out of print a few years ago. Now it’s being sold on ebay for $150 a copy. The reason? It’s the perfect format for cycling. You’re not going to duck into an internet cafe while you’re on a long-haul cycling trip. And it’s the same thing when you’re traveling off the grid. Guidebooks are wonderful back-ups. People have been predicting the death of guidebooks for many years, they’re wrong. People love books.

Tony in Iraq

Viator: Travel experts versus group wisdom – is the role of an official “author” still crucial? Or has user-generated content taken over?

Tony Wheeler: Even Zagat’s (which relies on user-submitted reviews) requires experts to pull everything together. Lonely Planet’s own Thorn Tree is another good example. There’s great depth of content on the Thorn Tree – right now a traveler is on the spot in Congo, in Libya, in Tibet, posting to the Thorn Tree – but still there are gaps.

Even if 500 people on TripAdvisor endorse something, it doesn’t mean that the quality hasn’t suffered recently. And that’s where guidebook authors come in. And then there’s Iraq and Afghanistan – only Lonely Planet is sending people there right now.

Viator: What surprises you nowadays about travel, in the way that people travel?

Tony Wheeler: Frankly I’m surprised that people show up in the oddest of places. I took a 4×4 to the most remote corner of Africa, and yet there was a couple traveling the same route by bicycle. Amazing. It’s hard to push the edges of travel now, especially in Europe. I’m also surprised how easy it is to travel now. People in the UK heading to Prague for the weekend, that sort of thing. Travel has maybe become too easy.

Viator:What’s on your travel agenda this year?

Tony Wheeler: I wrote a book called Badlands, about traveling to the so-called Axis of Evil (Iraq, North Korea, Iran). I credit the book to George W. Bush. I’ve always been interested in edgy countries and I’d been kicking around the idea of writing something about ‘pariah’ countries. When Mr. Bush produced his ‘Axis of Evil’ list, my first thought was “I’ve got to go there.” So the Evil Axis trio formed the core of my ‘Bad Lands’ and it was no trouble to come up with a half dozen other contenders.

Perhaps surprisingly, I had a great time in all my ‘Bad Lands’ and – apart from a little uneasiness in Afghanistan and Iraq – I was never particularly concerned for my safety. North Korea was easily the weirdest: a place alternating between horror and comedy, a Stalinist theme park, a gulag run by Monty Python.

I’d like to follow that up with a book about “Weird Lands”, countries that have fallen off the rails somehow. Think about Congo – it’s gone steadily backwards since 1958. Or Colombia, which has been ruined by America’s fight against drugs. Somalia, Haiti, there are many off-the-rail countries to choose from.

Viator: Would you share a few of your favorite travel experiences with us?

Tony Wheeler: Last year I visited the cosmonaut training center at Star City outside Moscow, then flew down to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. I had a close-up look at the Soyuz FG launcher the evening before the launch, met with Richard Garriott (game entrepreneur who paid USD $30 million for the ride) and his back up Nik Halick (they were behind glass, in quarantine) and stood at dawn to see the Soyuz crew (followed by an assortment of support crew which even included an orthodox priest). As interesting as the rocket launch was my fellow passengers – our little group of Richard Garriott supporters included Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Peter Diamandis of the X Prize, Charles Simonyi, formerly of Microsoft and a 2007 space tourist, and assorted other space tourism followers.

Walking to the Soyuz bus, just before launch

I also have the Planet Wheeler Foundation to keep me busy. Our 2008 projects ranged from building a children’s clinic in Cambodia to funding medical training in Afghanistan. My favorite project in 2008 was the Melbourne Solar System. It’s a 1:1 billion scale model of our Solar System, starting with the Sun – a 1.4 metre diameter bronze orb that weighs 350kg (over 700 lbs). It’s on the waterfront bicycle path that runs along Melbourne’s bayside, starting at the St Kilda Marina. Jump on your bicycle and pedal west, you’ll come to Mercury in just 58 metres, Venus in 108 metres, the Earth (and our moon) in just 150 metres.

Cycling past Jupiter in Melbourne

The reality of course is that Earth is 150 million km from the Sun. After Mars the distances start to stretch. You’ll have pedaled 2.9 km from the Sun before you come to Uranus, at that one to one billion scale the reality is 2,900 million km. Keep going and you’ll have ridden out of St Kilda, past Middle Park and Albert Park and finally, the other side of Port Melbourne, you’ll come to tiny Pluto, 5.9 km from your solar starting point.

-Scott McNeely