Two people can stay in the same camp, drive the same road on the same morning, and come home with entirely different journeys. The difference is almost always the guide, whether they can read a track, whether they know when to stop talking, whether they understand that the hour spent watching a single leopard is worth more than six species ticked off a list.

So that is where we start. Camps and lodges are chosen second, for where they sit and how few vehicles share their traverse, not for the thread count.

And Africa is not only safari. It is the Cape winelands in February, the medinas of Fez, the rock churches of Lalibela, the Namib at first light with nothing moving in it. We build itineraries that make room for that, a week in the bush, then something entirely different, so the journey has more than one register.