It’s finally here! The mobile era has begun for Lonely Planet. The vast and comprehensive travel content we have in guide books and the Internet has been exposed to the wireless world. Whether you’re looking for a nice restaurant in central Bangkok or sight seeing around Vancouver, Lonely Planet m-site can help you with reviews, prices, directions, maps and other travel related information. Did you just arrive to a new destination and want to know where to eat, sleep, shop, play or what sights to see? Type in your location and we’ll tell you what’s around. Easily locate your places of interest and navigate on the integrated Google maps.

Or you can browse through all the destinations around the world to research and plan your next trip while waiting at an airport lounge or traveling on a train. Read all the short but detailed text about hotels, restaurants, nightlife, and weather in all these destinations as well as the helpful advises from fellow travelers in the Bluelist forum section.

With the majority of WAP 2 handsets supported, the m-site will be a great tool for travelers armed with a mobile device.

Visit m.lonelyplanet.com on your handset.

The first SMS service from Lonely Planet labs goes live in the U.S. this week. Vegas Encounter is an information on demand service for travelers visiting Las Vegas.

Text the keyword ‘vegas’ followed by the activity you are interested in (e.g ‘quirky’, ‘free’, ‘high’, ‘vintage’) to PLANET (752638) and you will get a SMS telling you some exciting places to go or interesting things to do while in Las Vegas.

The service has been advertised in Vegas related publications distributed in the U.S.

Along with it goes up our SMS gateway update with features including bi-directional multiparts support, scheduled messaging, TPOA headers, Least Cost Routing, custom route configurations, 3rd party MT support, and SMS advertising.