Tony Wheeler was born in Britain but grew up in Pakistan, the West Indies and the USA. His family returned to Britain shortly before he finished school and after studying engineering at Warwick University and a short spell as a car designer he returned to university at the London Business School. Then, with his wife Maureen, he joined the Asian ‘hippie trail’ of the early ’70s. A year later they founded Lonely Planet Publications.
Tom Clynes is an author and journalist whose passion for discovery has taken him around the world. Tom writes about and photographs adventure, culture, issues and personalities for a wide range of publications, and is a contributing editor for the magazine National Geographic Adventure.
After years of assigning other writers to travel the globe — as editor of the award-winning Islands for 13 years and founding editor of National Geographic Traveler before that — Joan Tapper is now on the other side of the desk. As contributing editor for travel for Santa Barbara Magazine, she writes a column in every issue and does destination stories (as well as features about people, arts, and culture) for other publications.
Rick Steves hosts the popular public television series, “Rick Steves’ Europe,” and is the author of 24 European travel books. In addition to his guidebooks, Steves writes columns for various newspapers and magazines, and he appears frequently on television and radio talk shows and online travel chats as a leading authority on independent European travel.
Born in Sydney, Australia, he traveled around Asia and South America before becoming a foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires. Now a world traveler living in New York, he contributes to publications such as Esquire, Outside, Islands, the New York Times and London Sunday Times. His book Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists, was released in 2002; the paperback edition, to be published this month, will be titled Pagan Holiday.
David Stanley has visited 175 countries and crossed six continents overland. His travel writing career began in 1979, and over the next two decades he produced nine trailblazing guides for Moon Handbooks and Lonely Planet. After five years in Amsterdam, David returned to Canada in 1996.
Bill Dalton founded Moon Publications in 1973, with the publication of his groundbreaking Indonesia Handbook. The Moon Handbooks series has since become known for its award-winning, well-written and exceptionally informative guides. His travels have taken him to 81 countries around the world, and he is considered the foremost travel expert on Indonesia.
Pico Iyer is one of the most revered and respected travel writers alive today. Born in England, raised in California, and educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard. His essays, reviews, and other writings have appeared in Time, Conde Nast Traveler, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and Salon.com. His books have been translated into several languages and published in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America.
Thomas Swick has been the Travel Editor of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel since 1989. His reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post Book World; his articles and essays in The American Scholar, The Oxford American, The North American Review, Ploughshares, Commonweal, and National Geographic Traveler. His essays have twice appeared in The Best American Travel Writing anthologies. He is the author of the travel memoir Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland.
Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth is a British physician with a fascination for parasites and other loathsome creatures. She has led expeditions to Peru and Madagascar and has done a dozen high altitude treks in Nepal with her children from the age of four months. She has lived in Asia for eleven years, working on various health projects. She is the author of four books and is currently working as a general practitioner in England.
Gary Warner is the travel editor for the Orange County Register in Orange County, California. A 44-year-old native Southern Californian, he has undergraduate degrees from Cal Berkeley (history) and Cal State Long Beach (psychology), and he has a masters in journalism from Columbia University. A former legislative aide in Sacramento, he worked for The Pittsburgh Press as a political reporter before coming to the Orange County Register in 1987. He was on the Register’s government team, with his longest and last stint as military writer. He became travel editor in 1994.
