my name is tony wheeler and i actually
am the person who started lonely planet
the first lonely planet guide was a
budget travel guide across asia on the
cheap it was a starting off in london
traveling all across asia ending up in
sydney and australia and doing it on
very little money
i think the thing about budget travel is
you do get closer to the destination you
get closer to the people
and i think that's particularly
important with young people
i think when you're young it's almost
imperative not to have any money because
your experiences at that time are much
more alive
best in travel is effectively lonely
planets decisions on what it thinks is
going to be the hot places next year
in the best in travel awards for 2017
nepal came out as number one for best
value destination if you go there it's
easy to see why the restaurants are
reasonably priced there's lots of cheap
accommodation
i'm sure some of the reason why nepal is
being looked at next year is a little
help to nepal wouldn't hurt
nepal had a huge earthquake in 2015
really did cause immense damage
remarkably the modern buildings in
general stood up very well it was the
older buildings particularly the temples
that fell down and there's a lot of work
now to restore ones that really were
badly damaged
we need the money going into nepal to
help restore those buildings people need
to go back
the kathmandu valley is a place where
everybody starts if you fly in you fly
into the kathmandu valley and very often
you're organizing things from there if
you're going to go on a trek you're
getting your equipment together you're
doing all the planning that's necessary
the reason why nepal is so popular for
trekking is the mountains don't come any
higher than they do in nepal and a lot
of the trekking there is wonderful
maury my wife and i went trekking before
we had kids the last one i did was the
trek up to mustang loman tang i've
trekked up to the everest base camp i've
done the annapurna circuit around the
annapurna mountains but i've been
trekking with my children it's amazing
you'll find how far kids can walk you
know these kids will walk all day and
then they'll play all evening as well
the wildlife experience in nepal is down
in the south of the country you're
definitely going to see elephants
i've never done a trip to the terrain
when i haven't seen the one-horned
rhinos of nepal worryingly a rare
creature in our world today but you'll
see them in the terrain
once you get up in the himalayas seeing
other animals of the high country is
something you will probably be lucky to
do but of course what everybody would
like to see is a snow leopard and very
very few people get to see them but they
are there
nepal is also a great place for shopping
you need to arrive with your bag fairly
empty so you've got space to bring
things back and it's all sorts of things
from tibetan carpets to buddhist statues
wonderful paintings so you need to go to
the par with at least some credit left
on your credit card so you can indulge
it in some of the shops
i think nepal is on a lot of people's
bucket list for me it's been going back
to do another trek i really would like
to go back and see those mountains or
walk that valley it's a destination with
so much history so much culture
it is a great value destination
you