To put the final bow on our 100 Day Adventure, we thought it’d be fun to reflect on our trip “favorites.”

Destination

It’s probably not surprising that our favorite destination on this trip was safari-related, as that was the part of the trip we were most excited for. This particular destination featured a day of both morning and sunset safaris, interrupted only by some time at our remote tented camp inside a national park. The two game drives were stellar—we spotted an incredible amount of wildlife, including our very first leopard, along with a bunch of other great interactions with a wide variety of “top tier” animals. I’m speaking of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Wildlife experience

While we thoroughly enjoyed our experience in Botswana, I think our single favorite experience was following a leopard in Sri Lanka. It was such a surprise when we saw it (the rest of the safari tour that day had been sort of a dud), and then we promptly lost it into the bush. But, we repositioned along a different roadway and were able to track for quite some time, losing it as it entered the dense forest, repositioning elsewhere with the hopes of it again emerging from the vegetation, and guessing correctly several times. Eventually we got a chance to watch it make a (surprisingly lackadaisical) hunting attempt on a spotted deer that just a handful of yards away from us. Seeing a leopard was our primary goal in Sri Lanka, so it was great that it came together like it did.

Country

Overall, our favorite country on the trip was Australia. It was the only country on the trip that we could easily relocate to—just show up tomorrow and feel like we’re still at home. It also helped that we spent most of our time there campervanning around national parks…which, you know, is already probably our favorite thing to do. So as you can imagine, we’ve already started plotting a return trip, and a new quest to circumnavigate the continent, too.

City

Our favorite city (yeah yeah, it’s also a country) was Singapore. Of course, it helps that you arrive in perhaps the most interesting airport in the world. That place is impressive. But overall, it was both a welcome reprieve for us, as well as a quite unique place. After arriving from Sri Lanka after more than a month in Africa—places where roadside trash is seemingly ubiquitous—Singapore felt nearly surgical-table clean. Beyond its cleanliness, it also featured some really interesting architecture. It felt modern, safe, and a bit futuristic.

Meal

On the second leg of our overlanding safari tour, our truck broke down for seven hours on the (effectively shadeless) side of a two-lane highway in Zambia. Not ideal. Eventually, we busted out the cooking equipment and our guide made some simple chicken fajitas. They were glorious. It might have just been the situation, but it was our favorite meal of the trip.

Accommodation

Our favorite accommodation during the trip was our tented camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. This was not the nicest place we stayed, by any measure, but it was among the more memorable. We had to leave our overlanding vehicle and take a 4 hour ride in a safari vehicle just to get there. The camp had very limited electricity, just a couple plugs in the “lobby” tent, which were grossly abused by visitors who concocted a Griswold-style daisychaining of extension cords and chargers that was surely a fire hazard. Luckily, we had prepared for this and used our generous battery capacity instead (it pays to come prepared). Our shower and toilet were outside and open to the air. Baboons bounced on our tent roof during our mid-day siesta. Meals happened in the large “lobby” tent, which was open on one side to a large grassy field where large mammals grazed, or you could sit around the campfire instead.

Brewery

Good craft beer was hard to find on this trip. That’s not too surprising—the places on our itinerary aren’t beer places; after all, you don’t go to rural East Africa for hazy IPAs. That said, we had expected a bit better beer in a few of the major cities we visited. Luckily, our time in the Blue Mountains in Australia helped redeem the beer portion of our trip. That’s because we found Mountain Culture Brewing, which was our trip favorite by a wide margin.