The gurus of the gap year are now grandparents: Tony is 76, Maureen 73. In October it will be 50 years since that first book was published. Most importantly it gave generations of young people the knowledge and courage to set off on far-flung adventures - and in the process, some argue, it spawned a monster: a tidal wave of budget travellers that overwhelmed some of the world’s most beautiful spots. Bashed out on a borrowed typewriter in a Sydney basement, it initially ran to just 1,500 copies - but it spawned a publishing empire that shifted 150 million guidebooks, gave employment to thousands and was eventually sold for a reported £130 million at the end of the 2000s. The couple were Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and that trip became Across Asia on the Cheap, the first book in the Lonely Planet series of travel guides. They didn’t know it but the journey they had just made would change the lives of millions.
Six months later, broke, hungry and exhausted, they scrambled ashore on a beach on Australia’s remote North West Cape.
In 1972 a young couple hopped on a ferry from Harwich, Essex, with £400 in their pockets. Saturday July 29 2023, 6.33pm, The Sunday Times
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