At first, I thought it was only me, noticing how many WHS I have visited using a bicycle as my main means of transport, as I practically grew up on a bicycle in the Netherlands. But then I saw other community members doing it too – even Hubert from mountainous Austria! And long-distance cyclist Michael Ayers has proven that you can cycle almost anywhere. There are just so many WHS where a bicycle is the right kind of transport.

What advantages does a bicycle have?

If you have to choose between walking and cycling, the advantage of a bicycle is that it takes you just that bit further. It’s ideal for distances between 15 and 40km and perfect for exploring serial sites or cultural landscapes that are spread out.

Choosing between driving and cycling, a bicycle will give you of course that breath of fresh air. But also more of a ‘feel’ for a certain area (cultural landscapes again come to mind), as you move through it more slowly. You can also take smaller paths and don’t need to worry about parking. And it’s cheaper to rent a bike than a car.

Which …

Earlier this year I started rewriting the site intro texts to make them more consistent and appealing. The idea was to turn them into an Executive Summary of the WHS: what is it, why was it inscribed and what has the community to say about it (as written down in the reviews). It proved to be a huge amount of work, on average one WHS took me 15 minutes. I now have 95% completed and hope to finish the project before I embark on my next trip later this week.

During the process, I also made hundreds of small changes to the individual site pages which have improved their overall quality. Think of standardizing the size of the main photo, removing blank lines, updating specific visitor requirements (free entrances, guided tours only, etc), small name changes, and adding overlooked locations. And I took note of some remarkable, unintentional findings which are listed below.

I love one-sentence quotes that define a site : As I was aiming to summarize, I was glad to find single sentences within reviews that cover the site beautifully. Like “Falun gives you a real sense of how heavy industry can …

So I have the honour to first review this site after inscription! Fortunately, it wasn’t as gloomy as I expected it - instead of the celebratory “Wir sind Welterbe” banners common in Germany, the components of this WHS displayed happy purple signs stating “Jetzt UNESCO Welterbe - Mazal-Tov!”. Even the infamous Stone House (component #3), which was previously hard to recognize, now stands out in its street.

I don’t know whether Erfurt normally sees a lot of tourists, but on the Thursday in late October when I visited many tour groups were led through its historic center; mostly German, some Asian. I could overhear their guides talking about the newly gained World Heritage Status. I also happily explored its streets with its eclectic architecture, visited the Cathedral, the St Severus' Church, and the Citadel, and ate a hearty lunch. But after that, I couldn’t postpone the Jewish Heritage sites anymore.

The Old Synagogue seems to have gotten more accustomed to receiving visitors - you get a proper ticket plus an audio guide or a booklet on loan that explains the site and Erfurt’s Jewish history. One enters via a small courtyard and then has three …

Minor Boundary Modifications are a ‘thing’: over the past 18 years or so (I see them first appearing in 2005), over 120 of these modifications have been approved. They take up a lot of time from the State Parties and ICOMOS/IUCN in clarification but always pass through without discussion at WHC meetings so their contents stay a bit hidden.

We’ve had them as a Connection for a long time, but it was just a list without explanations – so it did not fit the requirement that we can actually learn something from it. I decided to refocus it, by only mentioning changes made to the core zones (about 60% of the modifications regard buffer zone changes or new buffer zones). The new definition will be: “Sites where a "Minor modification” has been approved after the year of inscription. Includes only modifications to the core zone that add or remove a named element.”

The difference between a minor boundary modification and an extension

There are actually three mechanisms within the WH process that deal with site boundaries. There is an ongoing ‘project’ of the WHC called ‘Clarification of boundaries’ which requests proper maps and coordinates …

It took me 35 years of travel as an adult, visiting 126 countries and 873 World Heritage Sites, before I finally made it to New York. I had a nice place to stay near the Flatiron building in Midtown Manhattan, and it almost felt like I lived there. I did not enter many places, I enjoyed just walking around and taking the subway or bus to cover the larger distances. Overall I found it had quite a European feel to it and it wasn't as crazy loud as you see on TV. The city’s 2 WHS and 3 TWHS are on the well-trodden tourist trail, but I’ll try to add some insights from a World Heritage perspective.

On my first morning in the city, I took the first ferry of the day to the Statue of Liberty . With a starting time of 9 a.m. on your ticket, you are allowed to enter the queue at 8.15 and the security tent at 8.30. I managed to get a spot on the upper deck. From here you get the best photo opportunities of the statue right before the ferry docks at the island (it does a small …

On my recent trip to the eastern half of the USA, I visited all three ‘mounds’ or earthworks WHS: Cahokia , Hopewell and Poverty Point . During my preparations, I found the last one the most intriguing. And although it probably has the least remaining visible remains, after my visit I still think Poverty Point is the most interesting of the three sites. Reviews of the other two will be published as well in the coming weeks, but I will now put the spotlight on Poverty Point.

The site isn’t visited that often as it lies in the middle of nowhere deep in Louisiana. I ‘did’ it as a day trip from Dallas by rental car – it’s 5 hours each way, which is long of course but it’s a straight shot east on cruise control and without much traffic. ‘Poverty Point World Heritage Site’ (this name is used on road signs to distinguish it from a nature park also called Poverty Point) lies just outside the cute towns of Delhi and Epps where everybody seems to live in a prefab house and have his or her own church.

Poverty Point is the oldest of …

The US City of Chicago was the venue for the 2023 WHS Meetup. It’s a great city that can hold anyone’s interest for a couple of days. It’s very walkable as well - we walked over 11km on the first day for example, on wide, clean and relatively quiet sidewalks. Its public transport, although maybe not fully appreciated by its residents, also is convenient and inexpensive. To the WH Traveller, it has two locations of the Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings WHS to offer and the Early Chicago Skyscrapers TWHS.

We started on Day 1 with a pre-tour walk at 8 a.m. through the Oak Park neighborhood. This lovely residential area is home to numerous Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, including his home and studio. Some of his designs were easy to spot, others a bit harder as they were more conservative than his signature Prairie Style. Also, I counted at least one squirrel in every garden and many of the historic buildings were showing subtle Halloween decorations.

Our first tour of the day was at Union Temple. This has always been an active church, but it is far from a traditional church building. Wright ‘won’ this …

In August/September, I spent 3 weeks travelling around Zimbabwe. I saw all 5 WHS plus one high-potential TWHS - you can find my itinerary here . It was a relaxed trip, I hardly needed a day of rest when I returned home (by comparison: Madagascar took me 1.5 weeks and Chad even 2 to get back to normal!). Also, I didn't meet a single unfriendly Zimbabwean. Herewith are some tips for travelling to Zimbabwe as a WH Traveller.

1. It’s a little different

The countries in Southern Africa have a lot in common (the selection of wildlife, the British-colonial past), so many things in Zimbabwe will be familiar if you’ve been to the region before (the elephants, lions, and English breakfast). I don’t think the safari experience is better than in the neighbouring countries, but neither is it worse: both Hwange and Mana Pools are classy parks, and there are other ones too such as Gonarezhou for the more intrepid wildlife fanatic. We had long and good quality sightings of the behaviour of several iconic mammals, without having to share these with other tourists. Where Zimbabwe definitely does stand out is for its three cultural WHS, including Great Zimbabwe which …

The combined 2022/2023 WHC Session happened in a more orderly fashion than we got used to in the past years, thanks to innovations like the ‘Celebration Room’ and what seemed like some pre-meeting diplomacy regarding Russia and Israel. What seems to never change is giving a WHS to the host country ( 'Uruq Bani Ma'arid , see first photo, thanks to Jarek) - and this year this 'courtesy' was even extended to the host that couldn't be one in 2022, Kazan .

42 new sites were selected – a mixed bunch. Find below some aspects that warrant a closer look.

1. Missing WHS

From our Missing List , we saw the inscription of Jericho and Klondike , and of Westhoek - which became part of the 139 locations of the Funerary and memory sites of the First World War .

2. Almost the first one 'Built in the 21st century'

Rwanda's Kigali Genocide Memorial was built in 1999. This makes it the youngest WHS to date, we're on the tipping point to including sites from the 21st century. The three following 'youngest' WHS now are Sydney Opera House (1973), Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli (1967-1975) and, arguably also the ESMA site …

Mana Pools National Park was the main goal of my 2023 Zimbabwe trip – rarely visited by our community, lacking a full review, but ranked among the best parks in Africa by safari nuts due to its large gatherings of wildlife in a ‘wild’ setting. Lately, Mana Pools is considered to have become ‘busy’ due to the ever-increasing number of camps and the accompanying vehicular traffic and what the IUCN Outlook 2020 describes as "crowding of iconic elephants and predator kills". The connoisseurs now prefer the even wilder Gonarezhou in the east of the country. As far as I have seen, the park shows no indication whatsoever of being a World Heritage Site (no plaque, no logos).

I spent 6 nights camping in the park as part of a 13-day safari tour: 3 nights at Chitake Springs and 3 nights at Mana Riverside. I will remember it mostly for its scenic landscapes. The rough area around Chitake Springs is covered with picturesque baobabs and even has its own ‘Baobab Avenue’. It also best shows the eroded 'sand-bank' environment – created by a large seasonal river - that is part of the site’s OUV. There are …