Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet

Good deal, book arrived early! Like new condition.

As advertised.

A very enjoyable read full of useful information.

Tony and Maureen Wheeler talk about all the places they have visited so far, how they built Lonely Planet as a publishing house, and share their personal views on several topics.The Wheelers' have travelled so widely that even the names of all the places they have been to can be tough to follow! They understandably have to rush through them. The most interesting part of the travel memoir section is the comparison between how the places were in the 70s/80s and how they are now, something the Wheelers' always point out.Besides being a travel memoir, this is book about building a boot-strapped busines. The Wheeler's show that building a business is more than just pursuing your dreams, it is about keeping a tight leash on finances, building a good team, competing with similar and larger competitors, staying ahead on the technology curve and reacting to external changes. The chapter "All about guidebooks" is an interesting introduction to how guidebooks are produced - from writing them to getting them printed. As a business book, it is similar to the Starbucks story (Howard Schultz, "How Starbucks built a company..").The book does not come together as a captivating story. In the first few chapters, the authors describe a chronological order, but that breas down in the later part of the book. Chapters like "All about guidebooks", though very interesting on their own, do break the flow of the story. In addition, there are topics that the authors pick up but do not do justice to (e.g. comparison with competitors is incomplete).An interesting book overall about travel, how travel is changed over the last three decades, and the challenges of building a business even if it is your dream business.

I paid for this new and this is what showed up. And the book smelled awful. I immediately threw it away.