A short history of travel guidebooks and why they matter more than ever

Lonely Planet, Moon and Bradt are still around nearly 50 years later. Bradt — still owned by its founder — is suddenly facing extinction as a small independent company. We’d survived ‘the death of the guidebook’ predicted by doom-mongers at the dawn of the digital age and were flying high, still following our original ethos of publishing the sort of books that make a real difference, not just to the traveller but to the country described. (As I step back from the day-to-day running of the company, this is the legacy I’m most proud of.) But this pandemic and the ensuing downturn in the purchasing of travel guides looks to threaten what we’ve built, with far-reaching implications.