Lonely Planet Travel Guides is based in Melbourne Australia

travel guide

Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. Lonely Planet is headquartered in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, with affiliate offices in London and Oakland, California.

The company name comes from a misheard line in “Space Captain”, a song written by Matthew Moore and first popularized by Joe Cocker and Leon Russell on the “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour in 1970. The actual words are “lovely planet”, but Tony Wheeler heard “lonely planet” and liked it.