Founders of the phenomenally successful publishing company Lonely Planet, Tony and Maureen Wheeler have produced travel guides to just about every country across the globe.

Lonely Planet Publications was born in 1973 when the Wheelers self-published a quirky travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. This was quickly followed by what soon became the backpackers’ bible, South-East Asia on a Shoestring. Going boldly where no other travel publisher had ventured, they catered for a new generation of independent, budgetconscious travellers long before the advent of mass tourism.

The Lonely Planet Story is a unique mix of autobiography, corporate history and travel book. It traces Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s personal story as well as the often bumpy evolution of their business into the world’s largest independent travel publishing company. Above all, their memoir reveals the spirit of adventure that has made them, according to the New York Daily News, ‘the specialists in guiding weird folks to weird places.’

Tony Wheeler is the co-founder of Lonely Planet.

When Maureen and I arrived in Sydney the day after Christmas 1972, after a six month Asia overland trip from Europe, we had 27 cents left between us. In late 1973 we started Lonely Planet Publications to publish Across Asia on the Cheap, the story of our trip from London to Australia. We spent the following year travelling around South-East Asia and in early 1975 published our second book, South-East Asia on a Shoestring.

From those early guidebooks Lonely Planet Publications has grown to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher with more than 500 titles in print, over 500 staff and offices in London and Oakland as well as the head office in Melbourne. In 2007 we sold a majority interest in Lonely Planet to BBC-Worldwide, but we’re still closely involved with the company and regularly travel to check out our books and other travel products, investigate new travel possibilities or simply to experience something new. In early 2009 I hit the road with a film crew from Lonely Planet TV to film the Laos and Alaska programs for The Roads Less Travelled series with National Geographic.