The Very Best of 2024

We're talking sunsets, pizzas, birds, binges, beaches, beer and hikes!

Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People was a year end staple from 1993 to 2015. Her curated list including the likes of Hilary Clinton, David and Victoria Beckham, Lance Armstrong, Caitlin Jenner, k.d. lang, J.K. Rowling, Ellen, Elton, Tiger, Ozzy, Oprah, Paris, Dr. Phil, Mother Teresa, the cast of Jersey Shore and Ricky Martin. Let’s not forget Honey Boo Boo and Taylor Swift in 2014.

She could snapshot a year like no other with her no-nonsense news anchor approach to the biggest movers and shakers. Celebrity takes all forms and her annual list inspired me to create my own with My 10 Most Fascinating Friends twist. We should surround ourselves with fascinating people, right? I like to be in the company of friends who are doing big and small marvelous things whether it’s renovating an old schoolhouse, traveling to Oman, learning the fine art of beekeeping, adopting shelter dogs, winter surfing or offering workshops on how to make butter from scratch.

In honour of Barbara, I decided to reflect on all the fascinating bits of this year from the best sunsets to the best binge. On the fringe of new year’s eve, why not create your own list?

The Best Sunset

Kim and I like to call ourselves unofficial sunsetologists. We earned the title by sticking hard to our non-negotiable of finding a house with western exposure. We wanted sunsets in the worst way—-and we proved it by looking at 88 houses before falling into the arms of our sleeping giant on West Little Lake. The sunsets here are searing satsuma in July and shift from the sharp purples in March to cream soda pink in October. We’re partial to “our” sunsets here at home but this one of Madagascar’s famed Baobab Alley swept us up and away.

Best Unexpected Thing to Eat

I really didn’t have high hopes for the foodie side of Scotland. I anticipated a lot of beige, whisky, oats and haggis. What we didn’t expect was all the halloumi! If there was an excuse to put cheese on something, it was halloumi. Should I admit that I ate three venison burgers in the span of xx days? No, I’m mildly ashamed. Kim and I had venison salami and halloumi pizza swizzled with balsamic. We tried crazy crisps (potato chip) flavours like ham + mustard, piri piri, pepperoni, creamy forest mushroom, grouse, chardonnay wine vinegar + sea salt and pickled onion. Branston’s pickles have become a mainstay in our fridge since we returned.

The biggest surprise came in the form of haggis spring rolls from Bertie’s on Victoria street. Dunked in a ginger-chili dip, this is how we roll!

Best Hike

In Scotland, Ben Nevis was a monster—-it’s the tallest mountain in the UK at 1,345m. The fog at the summit saturated us and then the cloud bellies emptied their contents on us on the entire descent. We had begun the day with the shy May sun on our shoulders and bouncing lambs in the pastures. By day’s end, Kim and I looked as though we’d been wrestling with Loch Ness. Our trail runners squelched and bubbled with every step. As M. Wylie Blanchet wrote in The Curve of Time, “Enjoyment is always greatest when you have enough contrast to measure it by.”

We won’t soon forget the heroic efforts and titanium nerves required on our hike through Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in Madagascar. Traversing this park requires wearing harnesses and clipping into the via ferrata (iron cable) route in several sections. I had a heartbeat that matched a hummingbird’s wing beat when we entered the caves. The what if? scenarios ate at me—what if my wonky back surrendered in a skinny fox hole in the cave? Could I be slicked up in coconut oil and dragged out? Our guide was as patient as a spider and reassuring, "Don't be fat. Don't be tall." He repeated this mantra throughout the day. This hike ended up being half underground, crawling around the guts of caves and balancing precariously on serrated limestone formations. The hyper focus of every foot placement was draining—and then we had to cross a wobbly suspension bridges 60m above the earth. “Don't be fat, don't be tall” proved to be a winning formula and the Best Hike title has been deemed a tie.

Best Binge

Jodie Foster can do no wrong, right? True Detective: Night Country had us on the edge of our economy seats from Paris, France to Antananarivo, Madagascar. Here’s what you need to know: Foster plays Liz Danvers and her partner, Kali Reis (Detective Navarro) is a former boxer in what we call real life. In Night Country they are obsessed with the mystery surrounding the deaths of Arctic research scientists found frozen and naked. Danvers and Navarro are both haunted by the murder of an Indigenous woman named Annie K. Yes, the thread pulls tighter. As one of the characters reminds them, “The thing about the dead is, sometimes they come because they miss you, and sometimes they come to say something you need to hear, and some of them just want to take you with them. You need to know the difference.”

Best Recipe

I am still mystified by the magic of these two-ingredient bagels. Seriously, the recipe calls for two cups of self-rising flour and two cups of Greek yogurt. THAT IS IT. I was a non-believer. Of course, I added a few ingredients to spruce them up. One round received a cheddar and candied jalapeno treatment while the other lot were doused in rosemary and sea salt. Click here for the pixie dust recipe.

Best Beach

Because, beaches and bagels go together. The trade winds had shifted in the night and rain washed the parched isle of Bonaire before dawn in big pelts that ricocheted off the skylights of our suite. Thunder shook the earth with such force that it rattled the dishes in our cupboards. Veins of lightning split the sky. The sea pushed the tide in with a wallop along the coral rock shoreline, throwing the water into the air like a fireworks display. Walls of water ripped along the shore to the north and petered out in the bend by Donkey Beach. The boom was like a dump truck thudding into a brick wall every time. Staghorn and elkhorn coral littered the road in messy piles of ocean bones, evidence of the storm’s surge.

On the flip side of the island, windsurfers ate up these precious trade winds all day on Sorobon beach. We’ve never seen so many windsurfers in one place and the sound of them ripping across the surface was hypnotic.

We love beaches as much as we adore sunsets and Nosy Iranja on Nosy Be island (Madagascar) nestled into an no-brainer tie with Sorobon. On Nosy Iranja, this 1.5km-long soft biscuit sandbar adjoins the tinier isle of Nosy Kely for a short window until the tide swallows it up again. The speedboat ride out to this slice of a dream was 90 minutes but the precious memory, it’s timeless. By day's end, the sandbar had vanished, dividing the isles and our vote again!

Best Pizza

There were a lot of cheesy contenders this year—-like that charcuterie pizza in Antananarivo with tart gherkins! But, the Black Isle Brewery in Inverness, Scotland has pizza and ambience down pat. Here's the deal: You order a pint and pizza (*venison salami with rockets) and the pizza is delivered in a box to your rooftop bothy hut!

Best Bird

There were a lot of flighty contenders in this category. There were pied wagtails, pheasants, flamingoes, bee-eaters, brown-throated parakeets, Malagasy sunbirds, barn owls and Venezuelan troupials.

What’s that expression? A bird in hand is worth two in the bush? I’m holding two birds in my hand and that equals four in the bush, all dashing and gorgeous. Each country is entitled to a Best Bird title, right?

Best Wildlife Spotting

The sifaka! They are often referred to as the angels of the forest or 'dancing lemurs' for their animated sideways leaping movement across the ground. Their startling white fur makes them seem so fictional. And those gold button eyes---it's quite a gaze to lock into. Their antics and choreographed gymnastic routines in Tsingy’s treetops made them a shoo-in for the best wildlife encounter.

Best Beer

At home, the house beer is Best Coast IPA by Three Sheets Brewing in Port Elgin, Ontario. Best beer away? All of them, but especially this Brewdog Punk IPA at Playback in Inverness, Scotland. This is what a working vacation looks like! Rooftop pints and some printing in between. Raise your hand if you thought the sun never broke through the bruised and moody skies over Scotland!

Best Dog I Don’t Know

I think this is my favourite photo from Scotland. This pup belonged to the owners of the Loch Eyre Guesthouse in Portree where we spent two nights. Look at those little niblet teeth!

Of course, Kim wins the Best Wife title again. And you win the Best Reader Ever! Thank you for following me all over the place from Bonaire’s baked beaches to the gorse and grouse-peppered Scottish Highlands and way over to Madagascar this year. Stay tuned for Jules is Out of Office adventures unfolding in 2025! I’m knee-deep in research for upcoming travels in El Nido, Philippines (*now that I can properly spell P-h-i-l-i-p-p-i-n-e-s) and Northern Vietnam in February and March.

Where was your best sunset? Best hike? What was the most unexpected thing you ate and loved? Did you nail a recipe and adopt as your own? Birders, are you out there? What was your best documented species? Beach bums and pizza nerds, please weigh in! Barbara Walters had her 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year, who was your person?

Happy, twinkly 2025 everyone. Keep calm and put your fascinator on!