Meeting Bill Dalton in Bali

This afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting one of the most famous travel writers in the world. Bill Dalton is one of the modern day travel writing pioneers and unlike many who have followed, Bill isn’t a stay at home Charlie with a clever pen and no experience, he’s been there and done it.

Bill was born in Waltham Massachusetts in 1944. After studying for 4 years in Copenhagen Denmark, he set off on a 7 year journey through 81 countries. Back in 2003 I sat in on a session at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, listening to Bill and Tony Wheeler, the man who started Lonely Planet. They recounted the story of how they met in Kings Cross Sydney back in 1973. Bill had just toured Indonesia and was selling copies of his ‘Indonesia notes’ sitting in the curb. These notes went on to become the Indonesia Handbook by Moon Publications. My 1984 copy is 1072 pages long and was all researched by hand (and on foot) by Bill, before the age of cell phones and internet.

One of the things I remember from the Ubud session was Tony Wheeler’s insistence that you need a guide book for travelling, and Bill’s insistence that you should read a couple of good books about the country, culture and language and leave the guide book at home.

Bill and his family have recently returned to Bali and live in the Ubud area. Bill contributes to numerous newspaper and magazine articles in the Bali Advertiser and Tempo magazine. I told him that when I run into a real expert on Indonesian culture, language, history etc. the stuff I write seems quite insignificant.

Bill sold Moon Publications several years ago and told me he is really a writer rather than a publisher. He has a home near Ubud that is for sale ($200,000 anyone?). He is hoping to move his Indonesian family to Solo in Central Java as he finds the culture to his liking. I hope to bump into Bill again and was glad to of met him.