Tony Wheeler was born to travel. His father worked for an airline. For the first 16 years of his life，Wheeler and his family lived in many different countries.
In the early 1970s，Wheeler met a young woman named Maureen. They soon married. Before getting jobs， Tony and Maureen wanted to travel. They took a year-long trip from London，through Asia，to Australia. On the trip，they visited places like India， Iran， and Afghanistan.
When Tony and Maureen arrived in Australia，people asked many questions about their trip. To answer these questions，Wheeler wrote a guidebook called Across Asia on the Cheap . The book told people about different countries' weather，customs(风俗），and places to see. But unlike travel guides in the 1970s，Wheeler's book also talked about places most tourists did not go. He also wrote about unusual things to see and do. The book was very popular．
Wheeler and Maureen started a company called Lonely Planet. They continued travelling. They wrote guidebooks for each place they visited. Today，400 people work for Lonely Planet. The company has over 650 guidebooks. Wheeler still writes about travel “hot spots” (for example，Cambodia in Asia and Croatia in Europe). For more information，read the books!