The Diary Of A Travel Blogger From Chicago To Vietnam

In the latest addition of our Travel Blogger series, we speak to Margaret Hicks and John Eiberger from Lost & Found Travel. Travelling together since 2008, they have made careers out of their passion, enabling them to travel far and wide. Here, they divulge the destinations that have stuck with them over the years.

Name: Margaret Hicks and John Eiberger
Current Location: Chicago
Occupation: Tour Guide and Visual Content Creator

Best place you’ve been to this year: Kowloon Walled City Park, HK China. It was such an amazing example of changing an idea, an area, a mindset. The park used to be these slums that were out of control in Kowloon. Now the park is filled with the most beautiful pathways, painters and artists. It’s so quiet, so peaceful and when you think about what used to be there, you realise that sometimes we really can change for the better.

Best cold place you’ve ever been to: Why Chicago, our often frozen hometown of course! We’ve been to some chilly places – Shanghai, the mountains of Morocco – but no place is colder than our own town of Chicago! An average day in the winter is zero or below and that’s on the good days. But it’s the cold that makes us stronger! And no one celebrates the warm weather like Chicago does. I’ll tell you what.

Best beach you’ve laid on: On a private island on a 1 day cruise with Indochina Junk in Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam. You know those moments when you know you’ve beaten the jet lag and are made well? It was our first cruise experience ever, 3 days after landing in Vietnam. We spent the day swimming. And not just a dip, but that kind of full body swimming you do as a nine year old. For the pure joy of it. We watched the sun set sitting on beach blankets, the 12 hour jet lag left behind in the sand and water.

Most dangerous place you’ve been to: The road from Marrakech to The Sahara. It was a really beautiful drive, but there were parts of that drive, especially at night, where I thought for sure our lives were over. Tiny…TINY, tiny, tiny, tiny roadways thousands of feet up. We knew that two cars were supposed to be able to fit on the road together but it never felt like that. You hear stories about cars going off the edge and our hearts were beating. Fast.

A place you’re yet to discover: Patagonia, with the whole trip ending in Buenos Aires. We talk about it every time the question of “Where next?” comes up. A trip about nature is something new to us. Our travel pattern seems focused at the streets of big cities, so some wide-open would and should happen.

Why you love travelling: Everyone has a different reason, and the totally same reason. We love traveling because we like meeting people from all over the world. We love meeting other travelers and also the natives of wherever we’re visiting. But there’s something about travel that takes you out of who and what you think you are. All the things, places and habits that provide comfort at home are gone aren’t there for you when you’re traveling. So you have the core of who you are to count on, and it’s nice to find that that is more than enough.

Watch John and Margaret’s Lost & Found Travel Videos