‘Tohoku Dreaming’, originally published in Flightless, Footscray: Lonely Planet Publications, 2008.
The last job they gave me was book-ended by madness.
It began somewhere in the labyrinthine insanity of Tokyo. I was trying to sleep in a tiny apartment, sweat pouring off me in great sheets. I was on assignment for one of the major guidebook publishers [...]

In May 2006 I returned to the Netherlands to update the Dutch chapters I’d previously written for the Europe On A Shoestring and Western Europe guidebooks. This time, I was also co-author of the Netherlands country guide with Neal Bedford: I wrote the Amsterdam, Zuid Holland & Zeeland, Overijssel & Gelderland, and Utrecht chapters. [...]

In late 2006 I updated and rewrote Lonely Planet’s online profiles for Guam, Palau, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

For Lonely Planet’s new online accommodation-booking service, called Haystack, I was initially employed as a consultant. I was involved with developing the shape and structure of the project from an author’s point of view, and contributed to the structure of the templates that are used today for authors employed to wrote Haystack reviews.
Later, I wrote [...]

For the second edition of Bluelist, I wrote a profile of Japan’s Tohoku region.

‘Profile: Tohoku’ by Simon Sellars from Bluelist 2, Lonely Planet Publications, November 2006.

TOHOKU
Grim Up North?
They call Tohoku the Japanese ‘deep south’ (even though it’s up north), a place where Japanese city slickers simply won’t go. Not only is Tohoku reckoned to [...]

I followed the Micronations book with Micronesia: in late 2005 I travelled around the North Pacific for Lonely Planet. I visited Guam, Saipan, Rota, Tinian, Kosrae, Pohnpei, Yap and Palau and updated and rewrote their respective chapters for the South Pacific and Micronesia guidebook (56,000 words in total). I also wrote a Micronesia blog [...]

Here’s a subject dear to my heart: micronations.
I co-wrote this book with John Ryan and George Dunford, and between us we managed to drum up quite a bit of publicity for a subject that seemed to touch a chord. Here’s an interview with me about the book, over at the fantastic BLDGBLOG.
For this title [...]

‘The Perfect Day: Melbourne’ by Simon Sellars, published in The Perfect Day, Lonely Planet Publications, September 2006.

Melbourne’s parks and gardens do the trick most times of the year, and the CBD is ringed by choice examples. I do a lot of work in the city, and on the walk in I like to procrastinate [...]

‘Treading Lightly on the ‘Galapagos of Japan’ by Simon Sellars, published in Code Green, Lonely Planet Publications, May 2006.

Ecotourism may be the world’s fastest growing travel trend but you’d be forgiven for thinking it never caught on in Japan. Relentless urbanisation has destroyed much of the country’s natural beauty; the government insists on hunting [...]

Bluelist is a fairly newish title from Lonely Planet. It collects the hottest travel trends from around the world, based on suggestions from LP readers, and extrapolates them into top-ten lists and feature articles. I worked on the title firstly as a consultant, testing out prototype formats and templates, adding feedback and future directions, [...]