Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet, reveals to Maire Bonheim from travel deals and guides website www.travelconnect.co.uk, the top worldwide off the beaten track destinations that everyone should see
In 1972, Tony and Maureen Wheeler set out on a year-long trip around the world, following the 'hippy trail' from England across Asia to Australia, with the intention of getting the travel bug out of their systems. More than 30 years later, their passion for travel is stronger than ever.
We quizzed Tony about his top travel recommendations, his worst ever holiday experiences and the changing face of travel.
How have travel trends changed since you started Lonely Planet in the 70s?
It's easy to say the internet and jumbo jets and low cost carriers, but there's also ATM machines (no more carrying around travellers' cheques and wasting hours in banks filling in paperwork to change money), email (no hit and miss poste restante services), and modern phones (just pull out your mobile, no waiting hours at phone offices and then not being able to hear a thing).
On the other hand, in lots of places the bureaucracy is as bad as ever - if anything, getting a visa for India is more medieval than it was 30 years ago and modern Russia is just as hopeless as the old Soviet Union when it comes to handling visitors.
Where did you last go on holiday?
The Orient Express to Venice and then two weeks walking through Tuscany and into Umbria. And a weekend in that well known European Capital of Culture for 2008 [Liverpool], visiting John and Paul's childhood homes and otherwise wallowing in Beatles nostalgia. Did the Tate Liverpool and other galleries as well.
Where are your favourite travel destinations?
That would be like having a favourite meal; it would soon become unfavourite if you had it too often. So I like somewhere new, not somewhere favourite. If you wanted the place I've been back to more often than anywhere else it's probably Nepal. And I've still got lots of walking to do there.
How important do you think the internet will be for the travel industry now and in the future?
It will continue to grow, in part because a younger generation is always much more wired than an older one. So the backpackers who are always booking hostels on the internet now will inevitably go on to always booking 5-star hotels on the internet as they get older.
Ditto for anything else they aren't doing now, but will as they get older and more affluent, trading sharing rides to renting cars and so on.
What was your worst holiday experience ever?
Years ago, before mobile phones and internet cafes, I was in Indonesia, phoned home one day to say I was fine and then was totally out of communication for the next 10 days.
A few hours after I'd called the news came through that my younger brother had died, a heart attack at 37 years of age. By the time I was next in touch I'd missed everything including his funeral and I've never been forgiven for that. Today, of course, there are very few places in the world where you could be out of touch like that.
Do you always go backpacking or adventuring, or do you sometimes enjoy a beachy package holiday?
I'm not locked in to anything; often extremes pop up in the same trip. One week you're in the wilds and hanging out for the next shower and some clean clothes, and then you're in some luxurious boutique hotel.
But my only recent experience of a 'beachy package holiday' was a disaster. We'd arranged to meet Maureen's brother and his family at a beach-package-place in the Canary Islands and after about 48 hours couldn't stand it any longer, rented a car and drove around the island for the rest of the stay.
When we came back to the package hotel room the stuff we'd left was still sitting there untouched and unmoved, certainly nobody had reported that we'd been missing for the past week.
Although I've certainly done some package trips which you really couldn't do any other way, a boat trip that started at Valparaiso in Chile and went via Easter Island, Pitcairn Island and a bunch of other weird and wonderful islands to Tahiti for example. When I went to North Korea that was a package trip, and a stranger bunch of package tourists you couldn't ask to meet.
What would you say are the top five off-the-beaten-track places around the world people have to see and why?
Oh, quickly, here's five, not necessarily 'the' five, however:
- Mali in Africa. If Rajasthan is India with extra colour and noise, Mali is ditto for Africa.
- Western Tibet - until they build the planned airport in Ali. Meanwhile it's one of the places where you're a week's solid driving from the nearest airport, and places like Tsaparang are eye-opening, while the three day walk around Mt Kailash wipes clean a whole lifetime's sins according to the Tibetans.
- Anywhere that has managed to scare visitors away due to trouble, political or otherwise. Haiti in the Caribbean is a good example.
- Lots of places in the Pacific where transport difficulties cut the visitor numbers. Even Tahiti (which is easy to get to) has island groups like the Marquesas where visitors are surprisingly infrequent.
- Albania - wild and wonderful country, some beautiful old towns like Gjirokaster, Roman and Greek ruins and nobody has realised it's no longer a danger zone.
Where have you come across the most intriguing cultures and people?
Papua New Guinea. More languages than any other country on earth (including some where women and men speak different dialects), amazing art, WW II wreckage, some of the best scuba diving in the world, and very few visitors.
What are the top American destinations Brits should visit?
Well Disneyworld seems to be where they all go. New York City (the most 'city' of all modern cities), San Francisco (I left my heart there), the Southwest (those amazing parks and desert landscapes of Arizona and Utah), and some of the great National Parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone.
What are your top tips to avoid holiday disasters?
Simple precautions such as photocopying your passport info page just in case it gets lost. Take another credit card or ATM card packed somewhere entirely different from everything else. And the most important big precaution of all - good travel insurance, not for minor spills and losses but for that once in several lifetimes real disaster.
Do you think low-cost budget airlines are a good thing?
Not for the environment, but certainly for some of the strange places they fly to.
Do you think that they will continue to be around in 10 years time?
If they are around in 10 years time I suspect they will be much more constrained and tightly regulated than they are at the moment.
Are you a fan of Antarctic tourism?
It's had far less impact on the region than scientific visits and national bases. Tourists haven't built nuclear power stations down there, shifted penguin colonies to make room for airstrips, left huge piles of junk and rubbish. It is strangely addictive, go once and you find you want to go again and again.
Which countries do you think have embraced tourism the right way over the last 30 years, and which have made mistakes? For example how do you feel about Eastern Europe marketing to stag-dos?
Stag-do operators and stag-doers would probably think they're a great tourism development. I think any place you care to mention would have a good and bad side.
I'm amazed how even a heavily touristed destination like Venice, a town which has become something like a high class Disneyland, a tourist destination rather than a real lived-in town, still has all sorts of quiet corners and come nightfall all the day-trippers disappear.
Tony and Maureen Wheeler's new book The Lonely Planet Story: Once While Travelling, out now, is a unique mix of autobiography, corporate history and travel book.
Whether you are interested in the exciting travel tales, the impressive business growth or the adventurous couple behind it all, an enthralling book of remarkable journeys, sure to inspire everybody who reads it.
The Lonely Planet Story: Once While Travelling (Crimson Publishing, 8th September) is available at all good bookshops, or buy it online for £9.99 direct from www.crimsonpublishing.co.uk.