Lonely Planets Travel Books

By Paul Ritchie Ingersole

Lonely Planet's first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, was written and published by Tony Wheeler, a former engineer and his wife Maureen Wheeler in Sydney in 1973, following a lengthy trip across the continent from Turkey, through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan before ending up in India or Nepal.The popularity of the overland route declined when Iran's borders closed in 1979.Written with flair and full of emotive opinions, the first guide sold well enough in Australia that it allowed the couple to expand it into South-East Asia on a shoestring, which remains one of the company's biggest sellers.

The company name comes from a misheard line in "Space Captain," a song that Joe Cocker sang.The real  words are "lovely planet" but Tony Wheeler though he heard "lonely planet" and liked it.

Lonely Planet's first books catered to young people from Australia and Europe (mainly the UK) undertaking the overland trail  between Australia and Europe, via South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. This was becoming something of a rite of passage for young travellers, especially Australians and New Zealanders, who spent many months (or years) on the journey.

Tourist facilities were limited in most of the countries en route, and low-budget tourism was unheard of. This was the first (relatively) large-scale influx of first-worlders who took local buses in Thailand, ate at street stalls in India, or stayed with villagers in Afghanistan. The tips and hints provided by guidebooks were seen as essential to avoid problems and danger. The Lonely Planet editions were not the first for the region - however by the late twentieth century they were a dominant feature of the market.

The Lonely Planet clientele developed a word-of-mouth affection for the company and its products. Reader feedback played an important part in keeping most of the guide books updated, Lonely Planet benefited from the Wheelers' skills as writers, publishers and businesspeople.

At the early stages of the Indonesian guide produced by Lonely Planet the later dominance of the publisher was by no means obvious. Bill Dalton's Indonesia Handbook had achieved comprehensiveness by the late 1980s while Eric Oey's Insight Guides and Periplus editions (Singapore and Hong Kong based) were higher quality with colour photos and less compacted design than Daltons in the 1980s and 1990s. It was only by the end of the century and the demise of publishers or running out of print runs from the other publishers that Lonely Planet was able to dominate the Indonesian market.