Lonely Planet Expands Beyond Guidebooks

Lonely Planet has launched several new programs under the development of Don George, who joined the staff as travel editor in April. Previously with Salon.com and former editor of the San Francisco Examiner's travel section, George brings to the house relationships with many distinguished travel writers, including Paul Theroux, Jan Morris, Pico Iyer and Tim Cahill.

These relationships will form the basis for Lonely Planet Conversations, a public lecture series. The first conversation will be cosponsored by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism on October 9 at UC Berkeley, and will feature Cahill, author of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg. A second conversation to be presented by City Arts and Lectures is in the works for the coming season and will most likely feature Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon. Lonely Planet hopes to make samples of these conversations, and those to follow, available on its Web site (www.lonelyplanet.com) in text, audio and video formats. Plans to move the conversations from the Bay Area to national venues are also in the works.

George told PW, "My presence here signifies a commitment to expand the LP brand into a variety of media; from travel literature to live and broadcast events, and to publishing original content online. We are exploring the possibilities of radio or television tie-ins and considering all the ways we might bring the Lonely Planet vision of travel to an increasingly mobile public."

While Lonely Planet has included a travel literature line, Journeys, since 1996, George hopes to reinvigorate that series.

Outside of George's domain is the creation of Lonely Planet Images/Photo 20-20, a stock photo agency that was created from the purchase of Photo 20-20 and combined with LP's own photographic holdings. Focused on "offbeat photographs capturing the diversity of the world," the division began operating earlier this summer and can be accessed at www.lonelyplanetimages.com.