I had been looking on EBay at some lonely planet guidebooks, but found it impossible to tell which edition was current, or if not current, how old a particular edition is. Given the fast changing nature of the guidebooks, it is great they do a different cover for each edition. However, it is odd that although Lonely Planet do a new cover for each new edition of each and every one of their guidebooks, but do not have any details of their chronological order on their website, or anywhere else that I can find.

For example, I was interested in getting hold of the 1st edition of Lonely Planet Thailand, as I thought it would be interesting to compare with the current edition. I thought I might even start trying to collect their first editions. However,  I have been unable to find out what it looks like, that makes it very hard to look for. The current guide tells when the first edition was published, but that is all. I don’t think there is any way to find out when the second and third editions were published, or what the cover looked like (IE - what to look for at booksales etc).

It has made me think I should contact Lonely Planet get more information - having read ‘Once while travelling, the Lonely Planet story” there is some information on the early books, so they must have a chronological list available?

I am also thinking of putting together a website with all the covers, so others can work out how old each edition is. Does anyone think that would be a good idea? I may contact lonely planet to see if this is OK, even selling early editions? I would love to hear if anyone else out there has come across anything similar.