Lonely Planet turns its iconic guidebooks into a next-gen travel app

The 53-year-old maker of the best-selling travel guide wants to enhance your travel experience with an app.

[Photo: Courtesy of Lonely Planet]

In my early twenties, I spent my summers backpacking through Pondicherry in South India, Yogyakarta in Indonesia, and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. I often traveled by myself, with my Lonely Planet guidebooks as my only companion.

Since the 1970s, these iconic blue books have helped generations of young travelers navigate off the beaten track around the world. Written by a network of 450 local writers and experts, I found the Lonely Planet guides crucial as I tried to figure out what neighborhoods were worth visiting, where to stay, how to avoid tourist traps, and........

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