January 1, 2005
Bravo: Lonely Planet donates to tsunami relief
To know the wildly exotic coast around the greater Indian Ocean is to love it.
Tony Wheeler, a Briton who spent his high school years near Baltimore, Md., followed the backpacker trail in the early 1970s from London through Asia and on to Australia and indeed fell in love with what he saw.
He and his wife, Belfast-born Maureen, began with a simple, home-produced guide called Across Asia on the Cheap. He gradually built the Lonely Planet publishing empire, with guides for most places around the globe, but a focus on the amazing world stretching from South Africa to Asia and the edge of Oceania. (See their history here.)
I interviewed Tony in 1987 for an article in the Baltimore Sun travel section, noting that his guides quite simply opened up vast parts of the world to the average traveler. I would never have gotten anywhere during my 1985 trip to China without the LP guide. The Wheelers made being an independent traveler a great deal easier. What an influence they have had on my generation. Lonely Planet arguably spawned the culture that led to the book and film The Beach (see my review here (scroll down a few screens).
No big phenomenon -- such as the popularizing of Thailand's beaches for young disaffected -- could be without its negative aspects. More than anything, The Beach demonstrated the scope of the Lonely Planet phenomenon, and the dark side of what is by and large a positive, socially responsible approach to travel.
Today I received the following e-mail from Lonely Planet's Comet, a monthly e-newsletter:
Lonely Planet has committed AUS$500,000 (approximately US$400,000) to the disaster relief effort. Of that money, AUS$225,000 will be donated immediately to the Red Cross, Care, Oxfam, Save the Children and Foundation for the People of Burma. The remainder will be donated to specific community initiatives over the next six months. In addition, Lonely Planet is offering each of its employees a day away from the office to volunteer in the relief effort, and is facilitating employee contributions.
Folks, this is a staggering amount of money for an independent publisher, or any publisher for that matter.
Bravo, Tony and Maureen.
More than that, note how Lonely Planet is getting involved: the careful selection of charities to support, the pledge to examine individual community initiatives after the immediate aftermath (and this company knows the areas affected well enough to help in a concrete way individual communities), and the offer to employees allowing them to volunteer.
Before receiving the Comet, I had already visited Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree bulletin board, earlier this week, knowing it truly was the backpackers' world grapevine. Lo and behold, the Thorn Tree had a valuable missing person's board for those seeking disaster victims, which I mentioned in my most recent blog.
$400,000 from one publisher. Good thing the United States upped its contribution from $35 million, because a great and generous nation of nearly 300 million should be able to give more than a dime a person, if a married couple can give nearly a half-million dollars.
Lonely Planet's donation is my own response, as a traveler, writer and publisher, to this disaster writ large, large, large. I didn't realize until this disaster that my first book, 
An Amateur's Guide to the Planet, had such a focus on the Indian Ocean, but it does. I write about seven gorgeous places (Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar) of the 11 countries later affected by the tsunami.
I've helped raise $450 so far with an offer of a free copy of An Amateur's Guide to fellow Farkers at the humor, news and Photoshop contest site Drew Curtis' Fark.com.
I want to do more, much more. I believe I'll approach other alumni of my high school, Richard Montgomery, in Rockville, Maryland, offering them an autographed copy of An Amateur's Guide as a reward for donating. With so many people having already given, my motivation is to stimulate a last little push among people who just need a tiny nudge or who are confused by the plethora of agencies available -- those who find it appealing, also, to read more about the area affected in a book that attempts to reveal these areas in happier times.
These Indian Ocean fishing and tourism communities were once paradises on Earth, and it is the least we can do to try to relieve their suffering.
Maybe I can also approach those areas -- Seattle, San Francisco, the Colorado Front Range -- that loved An Amateur's Guide when it first came out, perhaps via an offer on Craigslist. I am nervous about falling flat on my face with this effort, but I feel I have to try.
It was absolutely great to receive this news from Lonely Planet. Tony and Maureen Wheeler no doubt feel like James Firmage of Marin County in Northern California, whose family outran the wave on Phi Phi Don.
Over and over on CNN, he thanked Thai people who comforted his family and brought rice despite their own devastation.
Anyone who has traveled in South and Southeast Asia is likely to feel the same empathy for the people affected.
- posted by jbelliveau at 11:04 PM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
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