Tony Wheeler

Wheeler was born in England. His father worked for the British Overseas Airways Corporation as an airport manager, so he grew up in Pakistan, the Bahamas, Canada, the United States and England, never spending as much as two years in the same school.

Wheeler holds an engineering degree from Warwick University and an MBA from London Business School. He was an engineer at the Chrysler corporation.

After travelling across Europe with Maureen Wheeler, they arrived in Melbourne in 1972 and put out their first book, Across Asia on the Cheap in 1973. This would grow into the Lonely Planet empire, a name derived from a misheard Joe Cocker song (the lyric was, in fact, "lovely planet"). They married and had two children, Tashi and Kieran.

In 1980, the publication of a guidebook to India effectively doubled the size of the company.