Days 23-27: Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti, Tanzania

The tough balancing act in travel is seeing the best of the world without being surrounded by throngs of other tourists. The holy grail for any traveller is to find that awesome, unique spot that is also completely empty. Look at any travel brochure and you'll see it's full of words like 'authentic', 'untouched' and 'real'.

Of course, some places are justifiably full of tourists because they are among the greatest sites in the world, and everyone knows it. That's what it's like being in the parks of Tanzania- there is no better place in the world to see the great mammals of Africa- lions, leopards, rhinos and, the not-even-close-to-endangered fat german in safari gear with 24 inch telephoto lens.

Sure, there are hordes of tourists, but it's a price I am happy to pay. For my generation who grew up on Sunday night wildlife documentaries, this is the quintessential Africa- endlessly rolling savannah punctuated by acacia trees, and, of course, the animals.

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Then again, there are few things worse than sitting in a tourist-only bar packed with Aussies, Brits and Canadians (these 3 nations making up 90% of every mzungu you meet in Africa), where the bar is haunted by the tacky ghosts of tours past, as evidenced by the "Ockers in Africa 2007 - getting jiggy jiggy" commerative tour t-shirt, and signed by Kaz, Big Mike and Mongo and the rest of the wacky gang.

These are the I've-done-Africa-merit-badge-earners, people who think that drinking lager with a picture of an elephant on it qualifies as a cultural experience, yet would never think to walk 2 blocks down the road and have a beer in a local bar and possibly talk to someone who wasn't, you know, exactly the same as them.

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Watching the sunset over the Serengeti from a roof-top lodge bar is simply stunning. But is it $1500 per night worth of stunning? As I stood on this privileged vantage point I wondered, what had been the best moments of my trip so far? Arriving in Jinga, Uganda and having to set up my tent just as a torrential burst of rain began to pelt me, only for my frustration to evaporate moments later as I sat watching a lightning storm crackle over the Nile. And sitting in a night-time Serengeti bush camp and hearing the grunt of a hippo just metres away, the morning's grass trails confirming that, yes, there was a hippo about 2 metres from my tent.

If I had been staying in a lodge I would have missed both of these moments. That's not to say I don't appreciate the odd moment of luxury (I was down on my knees thanking Jebus for my 5-star hotel room in Beijing when afflicted with dodgy guts ). You just have to realise that, sometimes, money can't buy you everything, in fact, it may just exclude you.