Editor’s note

47 years ago, Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler had just completed a life-changing journey from London to. As they sat in an Italian restaurant necking a few glasses of wine, they tried to dream up the name for their fledgling publishing company. ‘Once while travelling across the sky,’ said Tony, repeating the lyrics to the song , as sung by Joe Cocker, ‘this lonely planet caught my eye.’ The correct words were actually ‘lovely planet’, but somehow ‘lonely planet’ stuck… and here we are today. Our hippy-era name must never have sounded more apt than it does right now, assuming your passion for travel is bottled up as you avoid mingling with others. I’m so glad we can deliver you some much-needed mental escapism with this issue: to transport you between the places and people we hope you’ll soon be encountering in person again. Let me sign off by saying thank you to my happy and highly creative team: to Alice, Amanda, Claire, Hayley, Mike, Orla and Rory, whose good humour and spirit of adventure I’ve so enjoyed sharing over our years of making magazine together.