Most travelers are familiar with the Lonely Planet brand, with its library of guidebooks covering destinations around the globe, and most of us have at least an LP book or two on our bookshelves. While people don’t often know the names and faces of the masterminds behind big international companies, Lonely Planet’s founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, have been very public faces of the company since it was founded in Australia in 1972.

Tony Wheeler recently wrote a book about traveling through some of the world’s more dangerous countries – or at least the countries which are considered by much of the outside world to be dangerous and inhospitable to travelers – which he called “Bad Lands.” He then went on the obligatory book tour, and when he came through Portland, Oregon last year he stopped at the BootsnAll offices for an interview with BootsnAll founder Sean Keener.

Wheeler is a legend among budget travelers, so it was a real pleasure to have him as a guest at BootsnAll. All of us at BootsnAll are fans of Lonely Planet, and Tony Wheeler and the company in general served as sources of inspiration as BootsnAll was getting started. We were fortunate enough to have a mini TV studio of sorts set up in the house and we captured the Tony Wheeler interview on camera – check out the interview excerpt.