About us

Hi there, welcome and thanks for coming along!  I’m Kirsty Bartholomew – a travel blogger who has been writing for over 10 years.

Lost in Landmarks was started in 2012 (when it was known as Barts Go Adventuring) as a space for me to record our travel adventures.  As time has gone by I began to specialise in sharing info about Scotland and England as that was primarily the places we’d travel to. Historical sites also feature highly – they are by far my most favourite attractions!

Kirsty Bartholomew, travel blogger, at the Cornish coastline in the UK
Kirsty Bartholomew (it’s me!)

About Lost in Landmarks

My mission at Lost in Landmarks is to inspire and encourage people to get out and discover the world.  

I focus a lot on the UK because I live here but also there’s info on our trips around Europe and the USA as well.  We have so much travel planned too that you’ll never be short on things to read about here!

You’ll find lots of in-depth articles here with all the info you need to head off an explore these places yourself.  Here’s a couple of examples of what is on the site and what you can expect from me:

angel in seligman az on route 66
On our Route 66 trip along with one of the big names of the road, Angel Delgadillo, and a random man getting his hair cut!

About Kirsty Bartholomew

I’m a 40 +year old who has always had a passion for travelling.  I clearly remember sitting watching Holiday, which was a BBC travel show, as a child and thinking what an amazing job it would be to be able to be a presenter on there.  I thought about being a flight attendant for an airline and was really annoyed to find I was too short (I’m a very short 5ft 0!) and also wondered about being a holiday rep at resorts like I’d been to with my parents.   As a teenager, I read travel magazines, learned about independent travel, and wanted to become a writer for them sharing my learnings and experiences.  I took off on solo adventures from the age of 17 and wanted to see the world.

As an adult, I always wondered how to bring that passion for travel into my career, but never quite thought it was possible.  Who was I to think I could get on the TV or get a writing job?  Once I had kids, having a career related to travel seemed even further away for me.  

Education is a huge part of my life as I home educated my kids for the past 18 years.  Our style of education was very chilled and we often learned through stories, through doing things or by visiting places.  I have one child who was very interested in history, specifically WW2, so we would often find ourselves in museums wherever we went.

This education style was expanded as we took a break from the rat race and travelled in 2013 and 2014.   This was also the catalyst for beginning this blog – I needed somewhere to share my hopes, my fears and financial goals.  We travelled around Europe in a camper for the first trip and did some slower travel on our second, incorporating house sitting and month-long stays to our travel.

Nowadays I’m happiest on my laptop, researching our next trip or writing up our most recent one!

About James

James is the unsung hero of Lost in Landmarks and often the driver of whatever mad vehicle we decide to take on our trips!  He loves to get away from the norm of life in England and he’s the perfect travel companion.  James loves to take photographs and any good ones were probably taken by him!  He’s learning more about that skill and also about taking videos so expect more contributions from him soon.

About Marcus and Alex

Marcus and Alex are 22 and 21 respectively so starting to come along on our trips a little bit less.  Marcus is my history-obsessed child who is responsible for any trips to WW2 related sites!!  Alex loves nature, geology and animals.  She has a new best friend…

white dog at Dryburgh Abbey ruins in Scotland
Annie the Bedlington Terrier on a recent trip to Scotland

About Annie

Annie is the newest addition to the Lost in Landmarks family.  She’s a Bedlington Terrier who we first met when we house sat for her owners in 2013.  She was our absolute favourite dog of theirs (they had 5 at the time!) although to be fair they were all pretty cute.  Annie is much happier in a house that is less full of other dogs so we chatted with her owners and before we knew it she had joined our family as the latest Bart.

We’re looking forward to lots of dog-friendly breaks, beach walks and chilling in cosy cottages with her.

2020 Onwards

2020 brought change to so many of us.  The Pandemic had a vast effect on travel and I’ll be honest I haven’t done much since!

What we did do was moved to a completely new area of the UK and we’ve been exploring close to home here.  I’ve been writing more about places we visit in a new local blog – Lost In Cornwall and also distilling my Route 66 knowledge into a blog about that – Lost On 66.  Don’t worry, I’ll still be travelling and we have lots of plans to do more!