David on Formosa

After visiting the Taipei Book Fair on Thursday (14 February) I returned on Saturday to attend Tony and Maureen Wheeler's presentation "Once While Travelling." Tony talked about his experiences travelling and building up the Lonely Planet business with his wife Maureen.

All this is discussed in his book Once While Travelling which has now been published in Chinese (title: 當我們旅行) for the Taiwanese market. He also talked about his new book Bad Lands which has also been released in a Chinese translation (title: 險惡之旅). These are two of the Lonely Planet titles that have now been published in Chinese-language editions for Taiwan. The other eight titles are travel guides to various countries. 

A long Q&A session followed the talk and I asked Tony and Maureen how many times they had visited Taiwan. Tony replied that even though Lonely Planet Taiwan was in its seventh edition, more than twenty years since it was first published, this was his first visit to Taiwan. However, after the Book Fair he planned to stay in Taiwan to do some travelling. Tony has written about a day by day account of his travels around Taiwan on his blog. 

• Day 1 – Taipei to Chiayi
• Day 2 – The Forest Train to Alishan
• Day 3 – Tainan & the Big Rat
• Day 4 – Across the Island to the East Coast
• Day 5 – The East Coast & the Taroko Gorge

(If there are any more updates to Tony's blog I will add the links)