Be it lovely or lonely, this planet is their playground

Among other things, Maureen Wheeler knows when to let her husband, Tony, have his way.

Thirty years ago he got the lyrics to “Space Captain” from the 1970 Joe Cocker “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” album wrong. The Matthew Moore tune actually begins, “Once while traveling across the sky / This lovely planet caught my eye,” but Tony thought it was “lonely planet.”

Maureen let the mistake stand, and Lonely Planet Publications was born.

Begun in 1973 with a single title, “Across Asia on the Cheap,” Lonely Planet now publishes more than 650 books that guide the wanderings of the backpacker set. I carried one with me several years ago when I reached what seemed the end of the Earth, the Thar Desert town of Jaisalmer, in the west Indian state of Rajasthan. Among the budget hotels clustered there was one with a banner touting its mention in the Lonely Planet guidebook.

Maureen, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, and wrote early editions of Lonely Planet’s “Travel With Children,” visited the U.S. last month, so I seized the chance to have a long chat with her by phone.

There were many things I wanted to know: how she met Tony, hit the road with him, started the company and raised two children while traveling nonstop to research “Lonely Planet” guides. Most of all, I wondered how Maureen, who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, thinks the world has changed for backpackers since Sept. 11. Here are some highlights of our talk:

Did you grow up traveling?

I was from a fairly poor working-class family in Belfast. Going to England was as big a journey as anyone made. I remember, though, that at 10 or 11 I started saying I wanted to write a book and travel right around the world.

When did you leave home?

I made my first step into the big world at 20, when I moved to London. I was doing temp work as a secretary when I met Tony, who was in business school there at the time. One afternoon I went to Regent’s Park to read a book. Only one bench had sun on it, but there was a guy there, and I thought he’d try to pick me up.

What happened next?

I sat down. Our first conversation was about travel. That was Oct. 7, 1970. A year later, to the date, we were married at a registry office in London. After that we bought a very bad minivan for about $60, packed it up and drove through Europe and the Middle East. We sold the van in Afghanistan, then made our way by bus and train across Asia to Bali, where we caught a ride to Australia on a yacht.

We had 27 cents when we reached Sydney, so Tony pawned his camera for $20 to rent a room in a boardinghouse. By the end of the month we both had good jobs and were saving money for more traveling. But first we decided to do a little book about our overland trip.

How did you go about it?

I brought my typewriter home from work. We laid out “Across Asia on the Cheap,” copied it, stapled the pages together and took it around to shops. The first printing of 1,500 copies sold out in a week.

It was just after the ‘60s, and people thought they could go anywhere, do anything. And there was really nothing else like it -- no guidebooks to places like India, Indonesia, New Guinea. For the first seven years it was just Tony and me, writing books for people like us, telling them how to do the kinds of things we wanted to do. During our second trip, around Southeast Asia by motorbike for 15 months, we didn’t want to miss anything. Whenever someone mentioned a place or we saw a poster, we went there to check it out.

Did you slow down when the kids came?

We thought it wouldn’t change anything. Ha, ha. We started traveling with Tashi [now 22] and Kieran [20] right away, backpacker style, always moving around. We just put them in the backpack; people loved to see them. But traveling that way with children so young was hard, too hard.

How old do you think you should start them?

Before the age of 3, they’re not going to remember anything anyway.

Do you think there’s such a thing as the travel gene?

I don’t know. When Tashi was a baby, Tony and I took her on a four-month trip across Southeast Asia. She loved sleeping in different places every night. But we took Kieran traveling at 3 months, and he hated it from the beginning.

How did travel shape them?

They’ve both grown up to be very adaptable and relaxed around all kinds of people. Their friends are just beginning to be aware of social issues they grew up with. I’m pretty pleased with that. They’ve always been the strangers in other countries. They know you can’t take for granted that what you do is right.

Given terrorism and the tense atmosphere in the world today, what would you tell parents with children who want to hit the road?

I grew up in Belfast. We can’t let the terrorists win.

It’s so much easier to keep in touch now, with e-mail and mobile phones. And there are still so many places to go. The more young people travel and learn that cultural differences are not to be feared, the more likely it is that the situation we’re in now can be changed.