What started as a dream holiday quickly spiralled into a nightmare for one young Australian traveller. In early May 2025, 20-year-old Maddi Healey found herself stuck for 18 hours at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in China after discovering her passport had gone missing on the flight from Sydney.
Healey had planned to kick off her trip by visiting the Great Wall of China with a close friend. Instead, she never made it past the airport's immigration desk. A frantic search through her bag and even her friend's, turned up nothing. Her passport had vanished, and with it, any hope of beginning the holiday she'd spent years dreaming about.
