OUR STORY

A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies. Lonely Planet was born.

Today, Lonely Planet has offices in Franklin, London, Melbourne, Oakland, Dublin, Beijing and Delhi, with more than 600 staff and writers. We share Tony’s belief that ‘a great guidebook should do three things: inform, educate and amuse’.

OUR WRITERS

Anthony Ham

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming

Anthony is a freelance writer who travels the world in search of stories. His particular passions are the wildlife, wild places and wide open spaces of the planet, from the Great Plains of the US to the Amazon, East and Southern Africa, and the Arctic. He writes for magazines and newspapers around the world, and his narrative nonfiction book on Africa’s lions will be published in 2020. Anthony also researched and wrote the Planning, Understand and Survival Guide content.

Amy C Balfour

New Mexico

Amy practiced law in Virginia before moving to Los Angeles to try to break in as a screenwriter. If you listen carefully, you can still hear the horrified screams of her parents echoing through the space-time continuum. After a stint as a writer’s assistant on Law & Order, she jumped into freelance writing, focusing on travel, food and the outdoors.

Becky Ohlsen

Washington

Becky is a freelance writer, editor and critic based in Portland, Oregon. She writes guidebooks and travel stories about Scandinavia, Portland and elsewhere for Lonely Planet.

Robert Balkovich

Washington

Robert was born and raised in Oregon, but has called New York City home for almost a decade. When he was a child and other families were going to theme parks and grandma’s house, he went to Mexico City and toured Eastern Europe by train. He’s now a writer and travel enthusiast seeking experiences that are ever so slightly out of the ordinary to report back on. Instagram: oh_balky.

Greg Benchwick

Colorado

A longtime Lonely Planet travel writer, Greg has rumbled in the jungles of Bolivia, trekked across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, interviewed presidents and Grammy Award winners, dodged flying salmon in Alaska and climbed mountains (big and small) in between.

Andrew Bender

California

Award-winning travel and food writer Andrew has written three dozen Lonely Planet guidebooks (from Amsterdam to Los Angeles, Germany to Taiwan and over a dozen titles about Japan), plus numerous articles for lonelyplanet.com.

Alison Bing

California

Over many guidebooks and 20 years in San Francisco, author Alison has spent more time on Alcatraz than some inmates, become an aficionado of drag and burritos, and willfully ignored Muni signs warning that safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation.

Celeste Brash

Oregon

Celeste has been writing guidebooks for Lonely Planet since 2005 and her travel articles have appeared in publications from BBC Travel to National Geographic. She’s currently writing a book about her five years on a remote pearl farm in the Tuamotu Atolls.

Stephanie d’Arc Taylor

Nevada

A native Angeleno, Stephanie has published work with the New York Times, the Guardian, Roads & Kingdoms and Kinfolk Magazine (among others), and co-founded Jaleesa, a venture-capital-funded social impact business in Beirut.

Michael Grosberg

Glacier National Park

Michael has worked on more than 50 Lonely Planet guidebooks. Other international work included development on Rota in the western Pacific; in South Africa, where he investigated and wrote about political violence and trained newly elected government representatives; and teaching in Quito, Ecuador.

Ashley Harrell

California

After studying journalism and working as a reporter, Ashley traveled widely and moved often, from a tiny NYC apartment to a vast California ranch to a jungle cabin in Costa Rica, where she started writing for Lonely Planet. From there her travels have only become more exotic.

John Hecht

Utah

Los Angeles native John has contributed to more than a dozen Lonely Planet guidebooks and trade publications, mostly focused on Latin America and the US. He headed down south to Mexico more than two decades ago and is still livin’ the Mexican dream in his adopted country.

Adam Karlin

Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon National Parks

Adam has contributed to dozens of Lonely Planet guidebooks, covering an alphabetical spread that ranges from the Andaman Islands to the Zimbabwe Border. As a journalist, he has sent dispatches from every continent barring Antarctica (one day!).

MaSovaida Morgan

Oregon

MaSovaida is a travel journalist whose wayfaring tendencies have taken her to more than 50 countries across all seven continents. As a Lonely Planet author, she contributes to guidebooks on destinations throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

Christopher Pitts

Arizona

Chris’s first expedition in life ended in failure when he tried to dig from Pennsylvania to China at the age of six. He went on to study Chinese in university, living for several years in China. After more than a decade in Paris, the lure of Colorado’s sunny skies and outdoor adventure proved too great to resist.

Andrea Schulte-Peevers

California

Born and raised in Germany and educated in London and at UCLA, Andrea has traveled the distance to the moon and back in her visits to some 75 countries. She has earned her living as a professional travel writer for more than two decades and authored or contributed to nearly 100 Lonely Planet titles.

Published by Lonely Planet Global Limited

CRN 554153

5th edition – April 2020

ISBN 978 1 83869 006 9

© Lonely Planet 2020 Photographs © as indicated 2020

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