Background
Tony Wheeler was born on December 20, 1946 in the United Kingdom; the son of Ian Wheeler, a pilot in the British Air Force, and Hilary Wheeler.
Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, United Kingdom
Tony Wheeler holds a Master of Business Administration from London Business School.
Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom
Tony Wheeler holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering from Warwick University.
(The book describes resorts and activities in the Great Ba...)
The book describes resorts and activities in the Great Barrier Reef and includes a section on the region's ecology.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0864425635/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i8
1990
Tony Wheeler was born on December 20, 1946 in the United Kingdom; the son of Ian Wheeler, a pilot in the British Air Force, and Hilary Wheeler.
Tony Wheeler holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering from Warwick University and a Master of Business Administration from London Business School.
Tony Wheeler is the founder and principal author of Lonely Planet Publications, a series of guides for adventurous travelers. His first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, was written with his wife Maureen on his kitchen table in a run-down apartment in Sydney, Australia. They bought an old van for $150 and drove through Europe, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, then sold it for $155 and kept on traveling by train and bus, across Pakistan, India, Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia. When they reached Australia, they were flat broke and had to find jobs to pay for the return trip.
Other eager travelers asked them about their trip: where they had stayed, how they got there, and how much it cost. They realized there were no guidebooks for the kind of trip they did, so they decided to write one in hopes of making a little money. The first edition of Across Asia on the Cheap was 96 pages long, hand- stapled together, and the Wheelers printed 1,500 copies and walked to all the Sydney bookstores selling them for $1.80 each. In ten days, they sold out. They printed more, sold them, and eventually sold over 8,000 copies.
From this low-budget beginning, Wheeler has made Lonely Planet into a $50-million a year publishing venture, and has produced over 600 titles in eleven languages. The Wheelers now have offices around the world.
A unique feature of the books is their brisk, often humorous and honest style; in their very first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, the Wheelers cautioned readers wondering whether to buy food from a street seller: “If he looks like he’s about to drop dead, eat elsewhere!” A hotel in Kenya is described as “Very clean, but the architect ought to be shot!” A guidebook to Greenland mentions that the best way to get from a particular town to another town is a five-day walk. Other books tell travelers how to do their laundry in Antarctica and how to avoid being attacked by bears in Alaska.
The strain of traveling and writing for Lonely Planet makes being one of the writers no easy job; some have disappeared after spending months traveling on a book assignment, sometimes taking the Wheelers’ money with them.
Travelers using the guides may come under pressure too, as a guidebook to Iran notes. In instructions to travelers who are arrested by the Revolutionary Guards, the book cautions: “Unless you speak fluent Persian, do not reply to or appear to understand questions in any language but English. Take care not to incriminate yourself.” Yet, the Wheelers don’t think they have a responsibility to tell people where to go or not to go. More important to them is the imperative of producing a guide to every country, especially the remote, untraveled ones.
Some controversy has attended the widespread use of Lonely Planet guides; some contend that the guides encourage inexperienced travelers to go to places they would be better off not visiting, or that the increased tourism to Third-World countries run by dictatorial regimes has provided economic aid to these regimes. The Wheelers, in contrast, believe that the exposure to foreign tourists often brings poor conditions in other countries to the attention of the world and forces these governments to improve. There is some evidence for this: when the guidebooks exposed human rights abuses in several countries, the books were banned there.
In 2008, Tony Wheeler with his wife set up the Planet Wheeler Foundation to support development projects that focus on education, health, human rights and building communities in the developing world. He was also involved in establishing Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing & Ideas.
In 2011 Lonely Planet was sold to BBC Worldwide.
Tony is also on the board of Global Heritage Fund, a wonderful organization working to protect and develop archaeological sites in the developing world. He now writes a column for Sophisticated Traveller.
(The book describes resorts and activities in the Great Ba...)
1990Tony Wheeler married Maureen Dixon in 1971. The couple has two children - Tashi and Kieran.