A chance encounter with the original travel man

Golden Bay-based author Gerard Hindmarsh found himself face to face with a personal hero on a cruise between Papeete and the Marquesas Islands.

One of the joys of travelling is meeting fascinating and interesting people along the way. One passenger on board the Aranui 5, the passenger-freighter I took from Papeete to the Marquesas last month, turned out to be Lonely Planet guidebook founder and publishing entrepreneur Tony Wheeler, still looking youthful at 75.

I have always wanted to meet him. To my mind, there are few, if any, other people alive who have been so responsible for fostering a deeper understanding and enjoyment of travel.

His personal motto is espoused in every Lonely Planet guide: ‘‘a great guidebook should . . . inform, educate and amuse’’.

I had heard he was aboard but it was only after hearing him across the dinner table recount his story about steaming around Cape Horn, starting with ‘‘17 turned up for breakfast, none came to lunch’’, that I realised I was sitting opposite Travel Man himself.

As much as exotic travel stories flowed out of him, he was genuinely interested in all the people around him.

That evening proved to be the first of one interesting conversation after another, until we docked back in Papeete 13 days later.

Our first stop had been Fakarava lagoon. As the freight was barged in, we 98 passengers also punted ashore to stretch our legs.

Most spent their three hours wandering up and down the atoll’s ribbon of white concrete that was the main street.

But I couldn’t help noticing that Wheeler wasted no time in hiring a bicycle to explore more of the island, only getting back in time for the last barge back.

His pace throughout the various islands was much the same as he maximised every opportunity for adventure – scuba diving, hiking over the range of Fatu Hiva to meet the ship at the next village, cycling and going off track whenever he could.

Forever asking questions and often jotting down notes in his small notebook, it was easy to see how travel and discovery had been at the heart of his life and career.

The story of how Tony and Maureen Wheeler started Lonely Planet in 1972 is still summarised in the back of all their books.

With a beaten up old car, a few dollars in their pockets and a sense of adventure, the couple got the travel bug and set off on the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia.

Several months later, at the end of their trip, thoroughly 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 had sold 1500 copies.

Lonely Planet was born, and grew to have offices in Melbourne, Oakland on San Francisco Bay, London and Paris, worldwide employing more than 600 staff and writers.

Wheeler was made for it. Born in England in 1946, his father worked for the British

Overseas Airways Corporation as an airport manager. He grew up in Pakistan, the Bahamas, the United States and England, never spending longer than two years in the same school.

After he qualified with an engineering degree from Warwick University, he got a job as a mechanical engineer with the Chrysler Corporation in England, then returned to university to do a MBA at London Business School.

His and Maureen’s lives changed after they quit their jobs to travel across Europe and Asia.

Arriving in Sydney broke was not an exaggeration; they only had 27 cents between them.

After the success of their first guide, they spent the whole of the following year travelling around Southeast Asia, and in early 1975 published their second book, Southeast Asia on a Shoestring.

Those books were followed by two children, Tashi and Kieran.

In 1980, the publication of their guidebook to India effectively doubled the size of the company. Lonely Planet Publications grew to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher, with its head office in Melbourne, where the couple settled.

It has been said the Lonely Planet name derived from a misheard Joe Cocker song

Of Lonely Planet’s first 10 titles, Tony wrote five of them, number 8 on that list being New Zealand, which is still doing well in its 20th edition. In 2007, BBC Worldwide bought 75% of the couple’s share of the company, and their remaining 25% in February 2011.

That sale brought the couple’s net worth to $100 million and kept them busy with Planet Wheeler, the philanthropic foundation they set up from the proceeds.

Then there is the Wheeler Institute at the London Business School, which focuses on entrepreneurship and business in the developing world.

Add in the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing & Ideas in Melbourne, which has something on most days (and nights) of the week, and a publishing interest with Text Publishing in Australia.

Tony is also on two other boards, the Global Heritage Fund, an organisation working to protect and develop archaeological sites in the developing world, and the Australian Himalayan Foundation, which works on projects with people of the Himalayas.

‘‘It is remarkable I still find time to travel,’’ Tony told me, but admitted that he and Maureen were winding down their work on the various foundations.

His books since Lonely Planet include Bad Lands, Dark Lands and Unlikely Destinations (aka the Lonely Planet Story) written just before they departed Lonely Planet.

More recently, he wrote Tony Wheeler’s Islands of Australia for the National Library of Australia.

In the 2014 Australian Queen’s Birthday Honour’s List, the couple were both appointed Officers of the Order of Australia (AO) for their ‘‘distinguished service to business and commerce as a publisher of travel guides, and as a benefactor to a range of Australian arts and aid organisations’’.

The couple now live between two homes, in Melbourne and in central London.

I ask Tony where his next trip will take him.

He says it is another cruise, this one from Japan across the northern Pacific, past Alaska and west coast Canada to Seattle.

‘‘That will be another tick off my bucket list, just like the Aranui 5 voyage to the Marquesas,’’ he enthuses.

‘‘That will be another tick off my bucket list, just like the Aranui 5 voyage to the Marquesas.’’ Tony Wheeler on his next trip