Cisco CCNA 200-301 Practice Question

The next hop in a static route should be the IP address of the neighboring router's interface that is directly connected to the local router. This tells the router where to send packets destined for the remote network. Using the adjacent router's interface ensures that packets are forwarded to the next device in the path. Specifying the remote network's default gateway or destination host is incorrect because those addresses are not directly reachable from the local router. Using the router's own outgoing interface is also incorrect, as it does not provide a forwarding path to another device.