An interview with Lonely Planet founder
Tony Wheeler. He is certainly one of the heroes of the travel writing world. His first book, Across Asia on the
Cheap was his way to tell people what he’d done and where, as he traveled all those years ago. He and
his wife also wrote South-East Asia on a Shoestring, known as the Yellow Bible. The empire these two have built has had
a massive, if unquantifiable, impact on travelers everywhere. In both a good and bad way. Face it, traveling with an LP
guide or the many imitators since, is a prereq for making your way around a new country. But on the other hand, very
often once a place makes an LP guide, it’s unique character is gone forever. Regardless, the Wheelers are towering
figures in the travel industry.