Recently I received an email from someone with some of the most amazing photos of many places I’ve been to.

It made me remember the many amazing things I’ve seen in my never-endingly eventful Travelife.

The photos are not ours and the email makes no mention of photo credits so unfortunately I can’t appropriately credit the photographers. 

OUR TRULY AMAZING WORLD

But I thought I’d share them anyway to remind everyone of the amazing, incredible, interesting and wonderful experiences in store when you embark on your own TRAVELIFE.  

From all of us at Travelife Magazine, the leading travel & lifestyle publication, our best wishes for a life of joy amidst travel.  

WHAT AWAITS ON A NEVER-ENDING TRAVELIFE

A bridge in Seoul

Hot air balloons over Turkey. Still one of my most amazing experiences so far.

A statue in France

A forest in Russia

A building in Germany

Sunset seen through a wave

An office in Madrid

Photo of a statue in Lithuania in the daytime and at night

A forest in Poland

A balcony in Chicago

View of Dubai

The (flat) floor of a store in Paris

A national park in New Zealand

The border between the Netherlands and Belgium, literally outside a cafe

Read more about the most beautiful places in the world in Travelife Magazine.

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Today I woke up remembering a happy trip to Tanzania. It involved three unique safaris and one beach holiday in Zanzibar. We chose safaris in the Selous, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti.

PLANNING FOR TANZANIA

This holiday in Tanzania really began over a casual conversation over a champagne, mussels and steak dinner while we were in Cape Town late last year. We were at a restaurant called Catharina’s at The Steenberg in Constantia.

By the way, the Steenberg has some of the most beautiful villas I’ve seen near Cape Town. We loved our stay here.

THE BEST SAFARIS IN AFRICA

It was at the end of a very enjoyable two–week trip to South Africa, and right there and then we’d decided to do another trip somewhere in Africa because we’d had such a good time.

“Where shall we go?” We asked each other, and I’m sure all the champagne had an influencing effect on our conversations.

Out of all the countries in Africa we could choose from for another trip to Africa, we’d decided on Tanzania together and then blocked a date for going in our calendars.

Basically, we threw a psychological dart on a map of Africa and decided to go where it landed. On the shortlist were Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania and Kenya. Then we did a bit of bargaining and negotiating regarding the places to include.

THE BEST LODGES IN TANZANIA

When this was done, I set about choosing all the hotels and lodges in Tanzania, as I just love doing this. The Travel Companion was happy to leave this bit to me and focus on where to eat and where to go for sightseeing. This was just like what how we planned our visit to South Africa.

Choosing luxury hotels is one of my ideas of bliss, by the way, aside from an afternoon at a spa, a very good meal with great conversation, and some shopping therapy. I just love checking out hotel and resort websites and booking the ones I like.

I wonder what this should be called? Hotel therapy? I’m pretty OC about hotels because I simply hate staying in lousy hotels.

Meanwhile, his part of the planning was all the domestic logistics, including how to get from point A to point B to point C. This included booking all those tiny planes to go from one safari to another.

Plus all the sightseeing and the restaurant choices because he’s as anal about restaurants as I am about hotels. So between us, we have the best of the world covered.

THE BEST SAFARIS IN TANZANIA

Anyway, for Tanzania, I booked three absolutely amazing safari experiences for a trip focused on the very best of this country in different ways. Give or take a few, of course, because two weeks just wasn’t enough time to stay everywhere I wanted.

There are about two other safari places I would love to do, plus a beautiful resort or two in Zanzibar.

THE BEST RESORTS IN ZANZIBAR

In Zanzibar, which was towards the last leg of our trip, I was planning to book a hotel in Stone Town but we had few luxury options. At that time, the Park Hyatt Zanzibar was just under construction. It’s now open, and this is the best hotel to stay in Zanzibar.

Meanwhile, the fantastic resorts in the beach areas are all very luxurious but these are quite a distance from Stone Town. But we wanted to stay by the beach. So we booked a beautiful resort with a perfect sunset view.

As for the safaris for this trip, lucky me. I got to pick all three safari places, although it was overall a pretty good compromise, as usual.

NGORONGORO: THE MOST UNIQUE SAFARI IN THE WORLD

This safari is the best and most special safari experience in Tanzania, and certainly one of the top in the world. The lodge itself is like a Hollywood set. In fact, you almost expect Meryll Streep and Robert Redford to come walking in to do a scene from the movie Out of Africa.

Meanwhile, the safari viewing is amazing. It involves driving down into the crater of an extinct volcano to see all the animals at the bottom. We did this for several days and our rangers always capped the game drives with a picnic breakfast right at the bottom.

We both had this at the top of our respective bucket lists.

Every single discerning traveler to this part of the world stays here as it’s really world famous for its combination of glamour, luxury and incredible game viewing.

THE MOST REMOTE SAFARI IN THE WORLD

The other safari is something I really wanted to do, although my companion was not so keen because he read somewhere that the game viewing isn’t that great.

Plus, he thought I was more interested in the safari’s spa than in seeing more animals. The spa really was wonderful. I got massages every day while wild animals passed around me.

But this lodge is pretty far out, so he was a good sport about accompanying me here for three days. And it’s still one of the most special places I have ever stayed in in Africa. It’s Africa game viewing at its most pristine — and also at its most surreal luxurious.

There are no conservation rangers or conservation efforts here, so it’s really a free for all as far as the animals are concerned.

This is also why the game viewing here is slightly different compared to the more “civilized safari areas.” One day, you may get very lucky. The next day, you may not.

But that’s truly nature at work without human interference, as far as I’m concerned. And if you’re into safaris, you want to include one like this every now and then.

LUXURY IN THE WILDERNESS

Besides, this is an ultra-luxury safari in one of the most remote places on earth. Talk about a completely surreal experience unlike any other.

It’s located is the Selous which has been called the last wilderness of Africa. Can you imagine what the last wilderness of a wilderness continent is like?

It’s also supposed to be one of the last remaining places on earth where you can go and escape manmade noises. This is still one of my favorite safari experiences ever.

THE MOST FAMOUS SAFARI AREA IN THE WORLD

Finally, the third safari was in a location of my companion’s choice because he wanted to see the Great Migration. And this is where I had to compromise, although not with too much difficulty.

It’s one of the most famous safari locations in the world, and the first choice of most people going on safari in Tanzania. And the safari lodge I’d chosen was possibly at the top of its class right now. It’s quite unlike any other in Africa.

All three safari experiences were best-of-breed and entirely different from each other. So our trip definitely wasn’t just like one never-ending, and never-endingly eventful safari.

THE FAMOUS FISH RESTAURANT IN ZANZIBAR

Finally, I’m posting a photo of a fish restaurant I really wanted to try while we were in Tanzania. It’s at one end of the island of Zanzibar, about one hour from Stone Town by car.

“That looks like a tourist trap,” the Travel Companion said, when I showed him this pretty famous photo. “But if you really want to go, I’ll take you there for your birthday.”

Yes, I was celebrating my birthday in Tanzania, on this holiday. It was wonderful, and Zanzibar was our last stop before flying out.

We ended up not going, though, because we found a really nice restaurant by the sea in Stone Town that served lobsters. Then suddenly, a one-hour drive for lunch at this fish restaurant seemed really far away.

So it’s still on my #Travelife bucket list, which of course never ends. This gives me something to look forward to on my next visit to Tanzania. Read more articles about safaris in Africa in Travelife Magazine.

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Part 1 of breakfast at the Mount Nelson Hotel. We always have part 1 and part 2 of breakfast, with part 2 being the hot food orders.

What a nice day today was in South Africa, living a TRAVELIFE.

We began with another one of our long breakfasts at the Mount Nelson hotel in Cape Town, a lovely Orient-Express hotel which is one of the city’s iconic landmarks.

That’s all our luggage for two weeks in South Africa, being loaded into our car after checking out of the Mount Nelson…

Then we checked out of the Mount Nelson and drove out early to the waterfront for lunch at Reuben’s, a very nice bistro in the ultra-luxury One & Only Resort in Cape Town.

It was slightly early so we got the valet to take our car, and then we actually went to the aquarium next-door for about an hour.

Cape Town has an award-winning aquarium by the waterfront.

The aquarium was fun but it was rather surreal, considering that The Boss and I, two very busy people running businesses (and in his case, lots of businesses), were walking around an aquarium like two kids.

But this is what we did, and it was nice.

Then we went back to One & Only for lunch.

I’ll write more about this delicious lunch in a later blog because I really enjoyed every single dish I ate.

Yes, it’s been long breakfasts, long lunches and long dinners throughout this trip.

Lunch at Reuben’s was delicious

You can imagine what havoc that’s done in terms of calories and kilos, but I haven’t dared stand on that weight scale yet, since I set foot in Africa.

But during this lunch, we happened to talk with one of the hotel staff about driving routes between Cape Town and our next hotel in the winelands of Constantia.

She suggested that we drive by the beach.

Reuben’s at the One & Only Cape Town

What a wonderful suggestion that was, as otherwise we would have taken the inland road.

It was a perfect day for driving by the beach, and the scenery that awaited us in this part of South Africa was truly magical.

I can’t ever forget this day, even just for the beautiful scenery and the sight of Cape Town’s famous Twelve Apostles in the sunshine.

This has got to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world, especially on such a perfect day as today.

I took this from the front seat of the car, as we drove the coastal route of Cape Town

Then we finally arrived at our amazing hotel, the Steenberg, which is the last in the long series of hotels we have stayed in for this South African trip.

It’s located in the wine and horse region of Constantia, only 20 minutes away from Cape Town but an entire world away.

I have to write about this hotel in a separate entry. But needless to say, it took our breaths away in a very understated way.

Both the Boss and I have stayed in some of the most beautiful hotels in the world, but both of us were quite floored by the understated elegance we found here.

We both loved it. That really says a lot.

We spent the sunset hour doing a wine tasting and just exploring the property. Then we had dinner at one of Constantia’s best restaurants.

Constantia has at least three excellent restaurants, including one world-famous one called La Colombe. That’s where we’re eating tomorrow.

And tonight we had dinner in one of the top three: Catharina’s at Steenberg. It was a Monday night but it was very impressively full.

Before dinner, we did a wine tasting at a really cool winery. The structure and the scenery were beautiful, and for a moment we didn’t know where we were in the world.

Maybe this was because it was the second to the last night before heading back to Manila, but we were pretty sentimental over dinner.

We toasted countless times to such a happy trip, full of amazing experiences, and talked about our favorite memories of it so far.

We also actually had a pretty good conversation about all kinds of things.

Then the Boss said something like: “Want to do a Travelife again next year?” I can’t remember whether these were his exact words now but it was something to this effect.

I just smiled and said: “We can do that.”

We’d had such fun on this trip, and there was never a dull, stressful, difficult or angry moment in our two weeks in Africa.

As early as May, we’d penciled in this trip in November, and the travel machinery — The Boss and myself, and our respective staffs — started working on this from June when we’d decided on the country to visit.

I still remember that I was in the Czech Republic in June, and he was somewhere in the Black Sea, and by BBM we’d decided to go to South Africa in November.

For a couple of weeks, we’d been looking for a country we’d both never been to before and that we both wanted to go to, and that was pretty hard to do. Eventually the shortlist became Peru or South Africa.

And after looking at the distances and times involved, South Africa won out in the end.

So anyway, The Boss asked me: “Where shall we go? Namibia? Tanzania?”

We’d fallen in love with Africa, and much of the trip we’d talked about the other amazing places to visit in this continent.

And he knew Namibia was at the top of my bucket list at the moment — along with about a hundred other places.

I want to do a different kind of safari in Namibia, as well as see the amazing sand dunes. In Tanzania, I want to see the Ngorongoro crater and the magical island of Zanzibar.

As for our two weeks in South Africa, we both certainly needed a good break from the real world, even for a moment.

And what a wonderful holiday this has turned out to be.

Good night for now from a most amazing place, and an almost unreal world, living a never-endingly eventful TRAVELIFE.

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