Tumbrella

Tony Wheeler in Iraq, 2006

You were born in England, grew up around the world and settled in Australia. What is it you love about Oz so much?

It was completely chance that we ended up in Australia. We stayed here for a year, then came back more or less by accident. The first time we’d lived in Sydney and liked it very much, but thought let’s try somewhere else so we ended up in Melbourne, where we’ve been ever since. None of that was planned, it’s just the way it happened.



What would you recommend travellers do while they’re Down Under?

If somebody was coming here and they said “Where should I go?”, I would always say the Outback. A lot of people are going to go to the Great Barrier Reef. That’s a great thing to do and I’ve always enjoyed travelling up the reef. However, I have been scuba diving in three countries in the last year. It’s all great, but there’s not a lot of difference once you’re under the water. The Outback is really the part of Australia that’s unique. It’s something you don’t see anywhere else. I’m definitely an Outback fan.



Backpacking is now big business. Do you think it’s still possible to have as adventurous a time as you did back in the ‘70s?

The year Maureen and I travelled around Australia like backpackers was 1974. We travelled for a month or two on our way out to Asia to do our South-East Asia guide. We started off in Melbourne, went up the coast as far as Cooktown, went inland to Alice Springs, down to 
the rock, up to Darwin. The sort of trip any backpacker would do today and stayed in the sort of places that backpackers would have stayed. But of course there weren’t any backpackers here in those days. We met two French tourists who had bought an old Valiant and were driving around in it. To meet a couple of French tourists in Australia in the mid-70s was very strange. We got to Darwin and people were heading out to Indonesia. There seemed 
to be lots of them but in comparison to today it was nothing. 



So was it a lot wilder then?

In comparison it’s a lot easier nowadays. You know, you come into Airlie Beach and you see the buses competing to drag you off. There’s all that, but if people want adventure they’re going to find adventure no matter what and Australia’s still a great place to do that. If you want it, you’ll find it.



You and your wife recently sold most of Lonely Planet to the BBC. Do you think LP will change?

I don’t think so, I’m hoping not. We hadn’t thought of the BBC at all. They took us by surprise. But I think it’s going to be a good fit. The book side I don’t think is going to change at all. The television side is going to be accelerated and definitely the website. Personally it was just time for a change, I was going stale. Now I’m more flexible.



It’s often said the best way to discover a country is to explore what isn’t in the Lonely Planet. How do you like to travel – do you follow guidebooks?

People have said they’ve used our books that way. Wherever we cover they won’t go there! I do a reasonable amount of travel each year and I really like all forms of it. I like going to the really civilised places and eating in nice restaurants and staying in nice places, but I also like the unusual.



What unusual place are you most keen to explore at the moment?

Probably Haiti. It’s a Caribbean country which has just been chaotic from day one. It’s the poorest country in the western hemisphere, yet you look at the great start it had. It was the first country in the region to kick out the colonial powers, in 1804. It should have been great but instead it’s been disastrous. It’s still in chaos. They’ve had revolution after revolution, lousy ruler after lousy ruler. The place is impoverished. It’s an interesting place. Congo – people are just starting to go back to, but it’s been a country that’s just never worked. From when the Belgians colonised it, until it fell apart, with Mobutu ransacking the place, it’s just been bad, bad, bad all the way.



Do you think you will you ever get tired of travelling?

No. The next six months is committed already. There are so many things I want to do. It is an endless satisfaction. One thing constantly leads on to another. You go somewhere, you find out about something and then you read some more and your interest is triggered to go to another place.



Are you always honest with other travellers about who you are?

Most people have no idea who I am. I don’t jump up and say “Hi, I’m Tony Wheeler, I’m the guy who started Lonely Planet.” I’d never do that. But on the other hand I’m not going to start pretending I’m not Tony Wheeler. You still meet people you have to explain it all to.



The Wheelers in Western Australia, 1972

Your list must be diminishing, but where are you still dying to see?

It is, but there’s so many of them. I’m not going to finish it in this lifetime. I don’t know any continent very well. I’d hate to say that I’ve travelled a lot, because if you say that you’re going to immediately bump into someone who’s going to outdo you by far. There’s lots of places in Africa that I’ve not been to, I wouldn’t say I’ve covered South America thoroughly. There’s lots of potential.



Where are you going next?

Taiwan. After that I’m probably going to Haiti, Columbia, America, then Europe.



Any tips for budding travel writers.

The first thing is to travel. We don’t take anybody on who hasn’t been overseas. It’s a specialisaton thing. I’m always amazed at the languages some of our people speak. They’ve gone to university and studied something that ties in with a region we’re working on and learnt the language that applies. They’re three-quarters of the way there.

Like this? Then check out these similar stories.

INTERVIEW WITH REBEL LONELY PLANET WRITER THOMAS KOHNSTAMM