The title also includes the first instalment of one of the most ambitious series of features ever created by a magazine team, say the publishers, Immediate Media.
The highly collectable covers feature a choice of four spectacular travel images and include a foiled and embossed central cover line, ‘The World’s 40 Greatest Travel Experiences’. They are taken from a feature reflecting the 40 favourite travel experiences by top travel writers and photographers working for Lonely Planet. The four images are: the Aoraki Mount Cook, New Zealand; a penguin parade in the Antarctic; Monument Valley, USA and the Dodecanese, Greece.
The writers used mobile phones and video equipment to document the trip, sharing tweets, blog entries, map updates, photos and videos at www.lonelyplanet.com/across-the-planet. According to Simon Carrington, publisher of Lonely Planet Traveller magazine: “Lonely Planet Traveller has made a real impact since it launched five years ago, bringing new readers to the travel sector with the ethos of the wider brand at its core. This is our most ambitious issue to date, celebrating the heritage of the world’s greatest travel brand but also looking to the future. The Across the Planet project sees the magazine and wider brand working hand in glove to produce content that can be used in a variety of exciting multi-media ways.”
To celebrate Lonely Planet’s 40th birthday, the publisher sent two writers across the globe to recreate the trip that led to the start of the travel guide. Marking the 40th anniversary of Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s pioneering first trip, writers Oliver Smith and Christa Larwood from Lonely Planet Traveller magazine followed a 10,000-mile route across Europe, Asia and Australasia and embarked on some of the world’s most imaginative travel experiences. The trip has also been documented in a series of four features for Lonely Planet Traveller magazine, the first of which is available now in the September edition.
The anniversary issue has attracted a wide variety of advertising from both core and non-core advertising, including: Explore, Travelbag, Canon, Vodafone and the Post Office. Display revenue is up 24% and inserts revenue has soared by 274% year on year, say the publishers.
