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.