Skift Q&A: Lonely Planet's Founder on Ethics and the Future of Travel

When Tony Wheeler and his wife Maureen drove overland from Europe through Asia and on to Australia in the early 1970s, they weren't planning on creating a global travel empire. But forty years later Lonely Planet, the company they founded, is the dominant travel media brand in English (and does well in Spanish, German, French and other languages, too) despite a few hiccups over the last few years. Since completing his sale of Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide in 2011, Tony Wheeler has continued traveling and writing, as well as supporting his charity Planet Wheeler, which funds projects in the developing world, and joining the board of the small publisher Text. In September, Wheeler published Dark Lands, a sequel of sorts to 2010's Bad Lands. He spoke with Skift by phone late last month. Skift: Why did you return to "bad" places again? Tony Wheeler: There were places that I really would like to have covered in the first one. But we'd filled up the book and it was time to call a halt to it. Also it was some places that really just didn't fit the context of the first book and they were still very interesting countries. Skift: What draws you to the opposites of the Parises and the Romes and the Londons of the world? Tony Wheeler: I think these places are always interesting and they're interesting for entirely different reasons, of course. We go to the Parises and Londons and Romes because they've got a lot to attract you there: the food is good, the travel is comfortable, and the hotels are nice. There are all sorts of good reasons for going to those places. But these places, the hotels are often very un-nice, the food can be terrible, but God, they're interesting. I think that's a large element of it. Some of the countries, I think the Congo for example, I compare that with Brazil and Australia -- two big countries with lots of resources and everything essentially works in Brazil and Australia. The Congo, nothing has ever worked and you have to ask yourself, "Why"? I think really similar questions apply to every other country in this book. Skift: How do you do your ethical best when you go to a place that's clearly having troubles? Tony Wheeler: I think it's not a question of doing your ethical best, it's a question of just doing it. The other one that struck me in this book, that was an entirely different situation than the Congo, was Pakistan. We stayed in some wonderful places there. Here's somebody who set up a very nice hot