Lonely Planet blog Category: People

What Douglas Adams teaches us about travel

Venessa Paech Lonely Planet author

Do you know where your towel is? It’s a question every traveller should ask, according to the exceptionally clever Douglas Adams, author of the ultimate guidebook, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A towel, the guide reminds us, is ‘the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.’ In addition to his authoring awesomeness,  Adams was a passionate champion…

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Healthy holidays – right or wrong?

HeatherC Lonely Planet author

Of all the types of travellers that exist, the one that really irks me is the holier-than-thou “healthy traveller”. I’m talking about the people whose sole purpose in taking a trip is to lose weight and tone up whether it’s getting up at the crack of dawn to do yoga at an ashram in India or…

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Tamales: America’s oldest Christmas food

Andy Murdock Lonely Planet author

New Mexico is my kind of state. Every American state has its boring official state motto, bird, and rock – but any state that has an official state question is clearly an interesting place, particularly when the question is “Red or green?” (asking you to state your chile color preference). And don’t spell it “chili”…

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When connections change worlds: Malawi’s windmill inventor

Vivek Wagle Lonely Planet author

Have you heard of William Kamkwamba? I hadn’t until this morning. In a world full of ‘amazing’ stories, his is truly extraordinary. As a boy in Malawi, he was too poor to afford school. Undeterred, he went to the local library to learn. Captivated by a book on windmills, he went home and cobbled together…

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New Travel Rule: No Table Butting!

Robert Reid Lonely Planet author

You’re in a self-service cafe or restaurant. It’s busy. There’s only a free table or two, and five or six groups in line before you. You do the damning math. Even if half are taking their bagels to go, you’re out of luck if you want a seat unless another table leaves. Do you have…

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Thorn Tree and beyond: networking travellers

Venessa Paech Lonely Planet author

I’m the Community Manager for Lonely Planet’s diverse and ever-evolving online community (communitIES, really) – a vibrant, challenging, tendrillar creature! This is the first of many posts about what goes on in our community, designed to give you insights about the way we manage our traveller interactions and let you know about stuff in the works.

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