Lonely Planet guidebooks given a revamp

By JIM EAGLES

Lonely Planet, the world's biggest guidebook publisher, is expanding its range of titles.

The company, which produced its first book on a kitchen table in Sydney 30 years ago, is marking that anniversary by revamping its country guidebooks, with more comment, better maps, expanded indices and new itinerary planners.

The new guide to Bolivia ($49.99), for instance, is a definite improvement, from the point of view of a newcomer exploring the possibility of a trip there.

It opens with an excellent map highlighting the main attractions, and includes basic travel information, top attractions and suggested itineraries.

That makes a much easier introduction to what a trip to Bolivia has to offer and what it involves.

Inside, the guide has all the usual well-researched information for which Lonely Planet is famous.

All its country guides are to be progressively updated into the new format.

Lonely Planet intends putting even more emphasis on guides for people with special interests, with its series on walking, diving, cycling, wildlife-watching and eating in different countries.

The new Walking in France guide ($49.99) certainly benefits from the new format, with its user-friendly maps and geographically organised table of walks followed by all the usual detailed information on how to get there, when to go and what to look out for.

There will also be more regional and city guides.

It has also started producing new Fast Talk phrase books to help travellers with basic communication.

One of the first in the series, covering French ($7.99), is a compact little book with all the phrases you need to buy a beer, ask for your bill, get directions to a museum, or deal with a problem.

The company already publishes 600 titles across 17 languages.

It sells more than 5.5 million copies of its English-language guides a year in 118 countries. The bestsellers are the guides to Australia - the champion - India, Thailand and New Zealand.

There is also a hugely successful website - more than 650,000 views a day - and it has just launched a television series.

But perhaps the best tribute of all is that the company's first employee, Andy Nielson, still works in the Melbourne office, and over the years has collected 191 snow domes from different parts of the world.