Lonely Planet writers Christa Larwood and Oliver Smith are making a trip to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Lonely Planet. In celebration of forty years they are going to replicate a journey that was taken by the founders of the first Lonely Planet guidebook, Tony and Maureen Wheeler.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
The activity is suitable for intermediate 2 students.
1 How long does Oliver spend travelling during the year?
2 Where did Tony and Maureen spend their first night forty years ago?
3 What scary moments did they go through?
4 What is the main objective of Christa and Oliver's trip?
5 Why are we living in a golden age of travel?
6 Where will the journey end?
To check your answers, you can read the transcript below.
New Headway upper-intermediate, the new edition, Oxford University Press, has an activity about Tony and Maureen Wheeler and Lonely Planet which is just perfect to revise question formation and the tenses. Go over the text and ask the questions to find out the missing information.
0 Example: How many people does Lonely Planet employ?
Lonely Planet is one of the outstanding publishing successes of the past three decades. It employs more than (0) .... people (How many?), and has offices in the USA, France, England, with its headquarters in Melbourne, Australia.
Tony and Maureen Wheeler have been writing Lonely Planet guide books for (1) ... (How long?). They have written more than 650 guides. They sell (2) ... (How many?) copies a year in 118 countries. The books have been translated into 17 languages.
Tony lived (3) ... (Where?) when he was young because his father's job took him all over the world. He studied (4) ... at Warwick University (What?), then business studies at the London Business School.
Maureen was born in (5) ... (Where?). She went to London at the age of 20 because she wanted to see the world. Three days later she met Tony (6) ... (Where?). In 1972 they travelled overland across Europe, through Asia, and on to Australia. The trip took six months. They wrote their first book, called (7) ... (What?) on their kitchen table in Melbourne. They have lived in Melbourne on and off for over thirty years.
Together they have been to (8) ... countries (How many?). Tony says that the most amazing place he has ever visited is a remote hilltop city called Tsaparang, in Tibet.
They are currently travelling in (9) ... (Where?), researching a new edition of their guide to the country.
He is thinking of selling (10) ... (What?). He said, ‘I've had a wonderful time, it's been terrific, but it has now got too much like a business.’
This is the biggest trip I’ve ever done. There’s literally nothing to compare it to.
It is really exciting, this was sort of underpinning of fear through out the whole thing.
Two thirds of the year I spend in the office doing officey stuff and yeah, the rest of the year I get to go travelling.
We’ve got to go to some really amazing places like Iceland, Kenya…
… Bhutan, Mongolia, Philippines.
All my travel with Lonely Planet each day’s so colourful and so different to the last. That makes it just really special.
We are doing this trip because it’s the fortieth anniversary of Lonely Planet. So in celebration of forty years we’re actually going to replicate a journey that was taken by the founders of the first Lonely Planet guidebook, Tony and Maureen Wheeler.
We started in London, bought an old car, drove from London to the coast took it across to Netherlands, and drove to Amsterdam, so Amsterdam was probably our first night. London and Amsterdam could double starting point.
Was it the first time you’d made…
… a big trip. Yeah, yeah. It was really the first big trip.
Was it pretty scary?
No, nothing scary at all! You know, you think, oh my God, this could happen and that could happen but actually it doesn’t, and we didn’t really have any scary moments all the way.
We went, Maureen and Tony were making this journey, there weren’t really kind of guidebooks like there are today out there.
After Tony and Maureen did their big trip across the world that we are emulating, it resulted in the first Lonely Planet guidebook. We’re doing the same kind of thing. We are heading off in a Mini and we’re gonna drive and try to discover the world and see what we find. The key idea is to find forty original experiences.
I really do think we are kind of living in a golden age of travel. There’s more people travelling now than there ever were before. It’s just about ordinary people meeting ordinary people.
It’s a real sense of discovery, which is amazing. We’re just heading off and we’re gonna make our way to Sydney and experience amazing things along the way. And maybe find some things that weren’t available to the Wheeler’s when they did it in the seventies as well. So, very exciting.
Ready?
Full steam ahead.
Key to question formation:
0 How many people does Lonely Planet employ? 500
1 How long have Tony and Maureen been writing Lonely Planetguide books? Over 30 years
2 How many copies a year do they sell? Around 5.5 million copies
3 Where did Tony live when he was young? In many different countries
4 What did he study at Warwick university? Engineering
5 Where was Maureen born? Belfast
6 Where did she meet Tony? On a bench in Regent's Park
7 What was their first book called? Across Asia on the cheap
8 How many countries have they been to? More than 100
9 Where are they currently travelling? In India
10 What is he thinking of selling? His shares in the company
