This year, Lonely Planet is celebrating its 50th birthday and the publisher, that has been helping travellers discover the world since 1973, is radically redesigning its iconic and much-loved, blue-spine guide books.

Embracing how travel planning has changed and recognising that business listings are now widely available online, the new style provides more in-depth and inspirational insight into how best to navigate destinations, how to save time and money, how to take more eco-conscious routes and connect with local communities, as well as personal stories from locals to provide a greater sense of community.

After extensive qualitative market research, the guidebooks have undergone a full revision and will continue to champion the need for a handheld guide, remaining the traveller’s best friend in an ever-changing digital world.

Lonely Planet guidebooks are now structured into four sections:

Plan Your Trip – a highly visual, inspirational, list style section exploring themes and highlights from a destination.

The Guide – enabling travellers to navigate the destination in-depth.

The Toolkit – dedicated to valuable insights on how to save time and money.

The Storybook – a deeper look at a destination via a series of specially commissioned essays to learn more about the history and culture of a place to get a sense of the communities and peoples living there.

These new formats are filled with the same Lonely Planet know-how but feature even more on-the-ground research, new and diverse local voices, highlight where can you take a train instead of a flight, suggest alternative destinations to overcrowded locations, or when visiting popular places how to lessen any negative impact and QR codes for those looking to connect even more quickly.

Travel expert, Lonely Planet, has always been a huge part of travelling culture and a trusted source for millions of travellers with over 150 million guidebooks translated into 33 languages, with content covering 95% of the world.

The first Lonely Planet guide Across Asia on the Cheap, written by Tony and Maureen Wheeler was a self-published manuscript based on the couple’s overland travels from the UK to Australia via the much-romanticised Asian hippy-trail.

It was here that the famous Lonely Planet guidebook was born, which quickly evolved into a more robust format filled with everything you needed to know from where to stay and eat, what to do and how to get around. Within a short time, these guides became the essential travel companion for any aspiring traveller or experienced country-hopper. Having a Lonely Planet guide on your bookshelf spoke to who you were as a traveller and the values to which you espoused. That one guide often led to a whole bookcase of lifetime memories, full of scribbles and notes taken throughout the journey.

Chris Zeiher Lonely Planet’s Senior Director, Trade Sales & Marketing commented:

“Travel has changed a lot since 1973, but Lonely Planet’s much-loved guidebooks remain a core part of the travel process and our guides have evolved with changing demographics, habits and desires and fresh feedback from our loyal travellers. Lonely Planet may be 50 but we are still guided by the same restless spirit and desire to shape and inspire travel. Always looking at ways to cater to new trends, but the handheld guidebook is here to stay! According to Nielsen Bookscan during the first 6 months of 2023 the World Travel category is up 17.95% with Lonely Planet up 10.21% (volume).”

Sporting a gorgeous 50th Anniversary logo, guides to Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Sicily, Greece, Spain, Vietnam, Great Britain, Nepal, Sweden and Cambodia amongst others are now available in the new style. Lonely Planet’s ambitious plan is to complete the publication of 230 revised ‘blue-spines’ over the next two years.