Best 2008 travel blog posting

Anybody who's been online for more than an hour knows that the internet churns out tons of mundane material, but that the occassional gem makes the search worthwhile. We've slogged through a year's worth of travel postings to bring to your screen the best of what 2008 had to offer.

Blog posting of the year - the best of the best of the best

Sebastian Modak's gripping tale of his gallivanting about Namibia is the best travel blog posting from 2008. It was very very tough to pick a winner, and whilst we agreed that there were better photographic blogs, we kept coming back to the proze which flowed out of the hard country of Namibia into this man's pen (or keyboard, shall we say). No guided tour for this group of adventurers, rather they took a bus ride from Gabarone to Windhoek, and then hired a car to blaze their own path. And blaze it they did, from hair becoming dreadlocked from sand accumulation, to the cruel 12-hour trip from hell in a combi on steroids packed like a sardine can with sweaty people, to striking up a conversation with a philosophising englishman in Swakopmund (who's houses reminded Sebastian of lego-pieces); Sebastian carpe diem'd his stay in Nam, sucking the marrow from the proverbial bone, and then chewing up the bones as well! Well done Sebastian, we hope you'll keep clicking away on that keyboard.

Best 2008 photographic blog posting

With his enthralling photographs of a Cape Griffon colony in Thabazimbi, Francois Portmann is easily the winner of the best photographic blog posting of the year.

Chicken soup award

Made of the right stuff, Jessica & Paul became Peace Corps volunteers, and moved to South Africa where they are making a real difference in peoples' lives. We commend them, and hope that their example encourages others to do the same.

Month by month winners

During 2008 we profiled 46 travel blog postings - here are our 12 monthly winners:

19 Jan 2008	Melinda, from Canada, and on a working holiday in Grahamstown, tells us of her trip down the Western Cape's Garden Route.
23 Feb 2008	Sarah does the Vineyards & Table Mountain in Cape Town
1 Mar 2008	Liv and her American girlfriends Baz Bus their way along the garden route...a 60 year old guy who for some reason permanently lives in a backpackers gets friendly with them.
26 Apr 2008	Ralph at Bundublog comprehensively covers Simonstown. [hyperlink deleted as it stopped working]
10 May 2008	Lisa the Londonite visits Stellenbosch and Cape Town for a wedding, and notices the ice-creamed coloured colonial houses and comparing the streets to San Francisco.
7 Jun 2008	Ayelet's exploration of Namibia includes a stunning photo of the Fish River Canyon.
19 Jul 2008	Gara Lamarche survives South Africa without getting shot this time, getting to see Richards Bay and Hluhluwe Lodge.
30 Aug 2008	Joanna takes in the views from above Chapmans Peak.
5 Sep 2008	Etaetzsch and her friend Chelsea make their way to Lesotho.
25 Oct 2008	Sharing a stunning array of photos along the way, Sebastian travels from Gabarone to Windhoek to Swakopmund.
8 Nov 2008	Francois Portmann plays the waiting-for-the-perfect-photo game at the cliffs of Thabazimbi, where he captures the essence of this Cape Griffon colony of vultures.
28 Dec 2008	When not making this world a better place as part of the Peace Corps, Paul and Jessica are showing friends the simple joys of dung spitting competitions, bathing in a bucket and riding horseback in Lesotho.

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