Most recent post on homepage with static content

I’m soon to be cycling from the UK to South Africa, and will be writing a blog as I go.
I’d like the homepage to show some static content, then the most recent blog post underneath.
I can think of two possible ways to do this:
1- Inline Posts plugin – this plugin only gives you the option to have a particular post on the page, so every time a new one was posted the id would have to be updated to keep the most recent post on the homepage
2- Something to do with creating a home.php as well as an index.php, and setting the home.php to only display one post? Any chance someone could walk me through how to do this – my knowledge of WordPress and php is pretty limited at the moment, and I’m still not sure how to integrate the static content and the loop.
My site is here – https://www.vetonabike.co.uk – I’d like the most recent post to show beneath the map and photos.
Example of what I’m looking for here – https://www.thebigafricacycle.com/
Many thanks