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, 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
Charles Rawlings-Way
As a likely lad, Charles suffered in shorts through Tasmanian winters, and in summer counted the days til he visited his grandparents in Adelaide. With desert-hot days, cool swimming pools and four TV stations, this flat city held paradisiacal status. Little did he know that Brisbane was just as alluring – a fact confirmed by more recent encounters with the city’s bookshops, bars and band rooms. Returning to Tasmania, he was thrilled to discover that Hobart has good coffee now, and there’s still snow on the mountain. Charles has penned 20-something Lonely Planet guidebooks. Charles also wrote the Australia Today, Food & Drink, Sport, Planning and Survival Guide chapters.
Meg Worby
Let’s do this by the numbers: this was Meg’s fourth trip to ever-beautiful Tasmania, her seventh trip to temperate Queensland and her 780th re-entry into her most habitable home state of South Australia. She is a former member of Lonely Planet’s languages, editorial, web and publishing teams in Melbourne and London. This is her eighth Lonely Planet guidebook as an author. Meg also wrote the Australia Today, Food & Drink, Sport, Planning and Survival Guide chapters.
Kate Armstrong
Kate is aVictorian, but for years has enjoyed migrating northwards for the warmth and laidback attitudes of sunny Queensland. Having recently ditched her surfboard, forthis edition, she bodysurfed at 6am daily. She also loved hitting the regions’ foodiescenes and was thrilled to visit the Dampier Peninsula for the fi rst time. With over30 overseas LP titles to her name, Kate also fi nally enjoyed getting her car dirty inher own backyard. See more adventures at www.katearmstrong.com.au and @nomaditis.
Brett Atkinson
For this edition, Brett flew across the gorges of WA’s Karijini National Park,explored the galleries, museums and emerging urban vibe of Canberra, anduncovered even more excellent Australian craft breweries on both the west andeast coasts of the country. Brett is based in Auckland, New Zealand and hascovered around 50 countries as a guidebook author and travel and food writer.
Carolyn Bain
Every summer of her childhood, Carolyn's family whizzed through regional NSW (twice) on the 3500km return journey from their home near Melbourne to the beaches of the Gold Coast. On this research trip Carolyn had considerably more time to explore, and covered 6500km of glorious NSW scenery under big blue skies, from the scorching sands of Mungo to the vineyards of Mudgee. The outback's 40°C temps made a change from her usual travel-writing stomping grounds of Iceland and Denmark. Read more at carolynbain.com.au.
Celeste Brash
Celeste has the great fortune to specialize in destinations involving islands, beaches and coral cays so the Queensland Coast was a match made in heaven. She’s contributed to around 50 Lonely Planet guidebooks and her award winning writing has appeared in publications from BBC Travel to National Geographic’s Intelligent Traveller. After 15 years in the South Pacific she now lives with her husband and two children in Portland, Oregon.
Peter Dragicevich
After a decade of frequent flights between his native New Zealand and Sydney, the lure of the bright lights and endless beach days drew Peter across the Tasman on a more permanent basis. For the best part of the next decade he would call Sydney’s inner suburbs home, while serving as general manager for various newspaper and magazine titles. More recently he’s co-authored dozens of titles for Lonely Planet, including the East Coast Australia and Sydney guidebooks.
lonelyplanet.com/members/peterdragicevich
Anthony Ham
Anthony (anthonyham.com) was born in Melbourne, grew up in Sydney and spent much of his adult life travelling the world. He recently returned to Australia after ten years living in Madrid and brings to this guide more than fifteen years’ experience as a travel writer. As a recently returned expat, Anthony is loving the opportunity to rediscover his country and indulge his passion for wilderness. He brings to the book the unique perspective of knowing the land intimately and yet seeing it anew as if through the eyes of an outsider.
Paul Harding
Though born and raised down south in Victoria, Paul has an enduring passion for the great Australian outback - and for a great road trip - so it was an easy decision to take on the vast Queensland Outback and Gulf Savannah for this edition. After clocking up almost 6000km, two dozen outback pubs, countless cattle, a variety of roaming wildlife, a few fossils and some great Aussie characters, he’s very glad he did.
A travel writer and photographer, and backpacker at heart, Paul has contributed to almost 40 Lonely Planet guides, including numerous Australia titles.
He still lives in Melbourne.
Alan Murphy
Alan has travelled extensively across Australia and worked on several Australian guidebook titles for Lonely Planet. The Northern Territory, with its ancient landscapes, outback characters and Indigenous culture holds a special place in his heart. For this update he criss-crossed the enormous expanse of the Territory and loved discovering new places. Alan has also written several online articles on the NT’s Indigenous Australians and feels privileged to have had the opportunity of learning more about their culture on this trip.
Miriam Raphael
Miriam has authored over a dozen books for Lonely Planet, racking up thousands of kilometres driving across Australia’s wide brown lands in pursuit of the greatest hidden beaches, outback pub meals and curious characters. She regularly enthuses on all things travel for a range of Australian and international publications, while blogging about intrepid journeys with kids at SevenSuitcases.com. After many years living in Australia’s extraordinary Northern Territory she has recently returned to her hometown of Sydney.
Benedict Walker
Currently hanging by the beach near his Mum, in hometown Newcastle, Ben’s plan of ‘livin’ the dream’, spending his days between his three great loves, Australia, North America and Japan, seems to be coming to fruition: it’s not greedy – it’s just sharing the love! Ben has also co-written LP’s Japan, Canada, and Florida guidebooks, written and directed a play, toured Australia managing travel for rockstars and is an avid photographer toying with his original craft of film-making. He’s an advocate of following your dreams – they can come true. For updates, see www.wordsandjourneys.com.
Steve Waters
This was Steve's sixth trip to the north of WA and while some things hadn't changed (huge distances, heat, blowing a tyre on the Kalumburu Rd), others were totally different (Cape Range NP after the floods, volunteering for the Mornington Bird Census, trying to find the same restaurant in Exmouth). Then there was the added novelty of coming to grips with social media :) Steve's written online articles on WA and co-authored previous editions of Australia, Indonesia, Great Adventures and Best in Travel and come the next Dry, will probably be heading north once again.
Contributing Writers
Michael is a well known broadcaster on ABC Radio National and has presented history programs on ABC TV.
Cathy is a Gamilaori/Anaiwon woman from northern New South Wales. She is a freelance writer and cultural consultant and has extensive experience in Aboriginal Affairs.
Tim is a scientist, explorer, writer and the chief councillor of the independent Climate Council. He was a professor of science at Macquarie University in Sydney until 2013 and was named Australian of the Year in 2007. He has written several award-winning books including The Future Eaters, Throwim Way Leg (an account of his work as a biologist in New Guinea) and The Weather Makers.
Published by Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd
ABN 36 005 607 983
18 edition - Oct 2015
ISBN 9781743609859
© Lonely Planet 2015 Photographs © as indicated 2015
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