While adding the plaque photos, I came across this pretty marker sent to me by Sebasfhb and found at the Wieliczka Salt Mine . It shows the first 12 sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, so it is essentially a plaque for all WHS of 1978 . It prompted me to look closely at how these 12 came to be the first.

The nomination process in 1978

The World Heritage Committee (WHC) responsible for confirming the first list gathered in Washington DC, from 5-8 September 1978. The text of the World Heritage Convention itself was drafted in 1972. In 1977 there had already been a first WHC meeting, where they decided on subjects like amendments to the draft text of the WH convention and a printed form to be filled in for a nomination, and where the wish was expressed that “the World Heritage List should be exclusive and ..drawn up with extreme care”.

As was common in the first years, a Bureau Meeting preceded the WHC in June 1978. Here, a select group of 6 Members (Chair, Rapporteur, Vice-Chairs - together known as the "Bureau") reviewed the nominations received and the evaluations IUCN, ICCROM and ICOMOS presented. Their …

Last October, we started the inventory of WHS Plaques, with many community members posting their info at the dedicated forum topic since. I'd like to give a big thanks to all who have contributed. Especially to Clyde , who is the go-to guy to answer the question “Where’s the plaque?” since he has been fascinated with them for a long time. About 70% of the WHS now have at least one plaque registered.

Findings from the first stage

A total of 1179 plaque locations have been put forward, spanning 851 sites. Over 1100 pictures of plaques were shared.

• We found out that some plaques that had been photographed previously are no longer present on site. So there is a Plaque History as well. I’ve added those older ones to the repository as well (with a remark) since they may have had interesting designs.
• When No Plaque has been found on a site, this is also logged.
• Some sites have dozens of small plaques, one for each monument. Here, I tried to follow the logic of making separate entries only when they are at official separate components.
• As always, when you’re …

When I wrote about the TWHS Masters three weeks ago, I was surprised to find that people who visited all or almost all countries were missing out on also having visited (T)WHS in those countries. A drop of 30-40 is not uncommon. I decided to have a closer look at which countries are the hardest to visit a WHS in, and why the WHS in those countries may have stayed unvisited.

None of the WHS visited

At the moment, 168 states have at least one WHS. The best scorer (Shihe Huang) among the community members has visited WHS in 154 countries. So he misses 14, and the others at the top of the rankings even lack up to 35 countries.

So which countries do they miss? Looking at the Top 16 members displayed in the rankings, together they have 94 different countries where they are missing a visit. The 10 Most Difficult are:

A few other countries just outside the Top 10 are notable as well, as they have more than 3 WHS to choose from but are rarely covered: Burkina Faso (4), Cote d’Ivoire (5), DRC (5), and Tajikistan (4). You can find the full list here .

General …

Cidade Velha is an easy, short excursion from Santiago’s (and Cabo Verde’s) capital Praia. A bay, a few cobbled streets, remains of Portuguese fortifications and churches – you know what it looks like even before you have seen it. I tried a different approach for my visit and went for a guided hike through the Ribeira Grande Valley. This way I also ticked one of the other activity boxes I had for Cabo Verde: “Do a hike in the countryside” (as the archipelago is known as a hiker's paradise).

When you look at the official map of Cidade Velha WHS, you’ll notice that not only the seaside town is included but also a much larger area inland. The boundaries of the core zone follow the canyon that was carved out by the river Ribeira Grande. This area is linked to a specific part of the site’s OUV: the “acclimatisation and dissemination of numerous plant species between the temperate and tropical zones”. The Portuguese colonists experimented with various crops here in the 16th and 17th centuries, starting unsuccessfully with cereals but later finding out that plants from Africa’s mainland (coconut) and Latin America (maize) did well.

My recent trip to all 10 WHS of Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia was a mix of 3 styles: a Group Tour for Mauritania, independent travel in North Senegal and a Private Tour for Gambia and East Senegal. I do not regret these choices. The downsides of organized travel were mitigated by not having to endure them for a long time. Let’s look at what Tours to WHS can bring you.

Pros and cons of tours

1. Convenience versus lack of first-hand experience

Although I always first try to cover places individually, sometimes the infrastructure just isn’t there (or very complicated/expensive) to do it on your own. Desert trips like Mauritania and Chad require 4WD driving skills and travelling in a convoy. Manu NP requires a boat and camping in the jungle. Without a tour, you would not even get there.

The downside is that when I don’t organize it all myself, I feel less prepared and the memories don’t stay with me as long.

2. Local perspective versus cost of adding a guide

A good guide can be your key to unlocking the country, adding local perspective …

I have added a new page in the Community Statistics section. It’s called ‘TWHS Masters’ and shows results based on Tentative Site visits as logged by our community members. I have written about TWHS before in the post “ The Value of a TWHS ”, where I argued that visiting TWHS is a waste of time with a success rate of 14% ever being promoted to WHS. But of course, you can visit them based on their own merits or use them to spice up your itinerary in a country.

Most TWHS visited

We start with the simple math of who has ‘ticked’ the highest number of TWHS . For this ranking it’s important to keep in mind that a considerable number of members have not logged their TWHS count : 5 from the Top 10 and 3 more from the Top 20.

Roman is the winner here. He clearly beat #2 with 80 sites. It’s the result of his long-term goal to revisit all countries one by one, covering all provinces and all WHS and TWHS as far as possible.

Some do significantly better on TWHS than on WHS, which can be seen in the overall WHS ranking displayed …

I just returned from 2 weeks in Senegal and The Gambia. The countries are fairly similar, logistically entwined and both are friendly and safe. I didn’t have high expectations, but I found enough to enjoy and the WHS of Djoudj , the Saloum Delta and the Bassari Country will appeal to anyone. Herewith are some tips for travelling to Senegambia as a WH Traveller.

Don't be put off by the scarce resources in English

There is frustrating little info in English available for an individual traveller to get around these countries. Recommended sources like the iOverlander app or the West-Africa Facebook group will only make you sad and I have deleted them already. The people active there seem only interested in road conditions and the peculiarities of border crossings, not in the countries themselves, and often display very questionable travel ethics. At least visiting the 8 WHS will give you a good overview of Senegal and The Gambia as they are nicely spread out and touch upon different topics.

No need to prebook

There is no need to book any transport or activities in advance (except for The Difficult Two, see below) – everything can be arranged on the spot …

Like the Omo Valley , people visit the Saloum Delta mostly for A (birding) while it is inscribed for B (the tradition of shellfish gathering and the historical shell mounds). Fortunately, unlike Omo, Saloum is well-documented, with clear maps. The place to start your boat journey is the laidback town of Toubakouta, which lies conveniently close to the Gambian border if you have plans for an onward journey. The town can also be reached from Dakar or even Saint-Louis within a day.

My B&B offered a ‘menu’ of no less than 24 tours and other activities, but my eyes already stopped at #2: a late afternoon boat trip to L’île aux coquillages . So at 4.30 pm, boat guy Ibu and I stepped into the large wooden, motored pirogue and went out. The waters of the Saloum River tributaries are calm (though the Delta is tidal). It is a good area for fishing: one of the other guests had caught two large barracudas the other day, which we had for a delicious dinner in the evening!

Close to the town, you can see wooden racks standing in the water. These hold nets for the artificial …

Mauritania’s Banc d’Arguin NP is rarely visited and has only been reviewed once, about 18 years ago. However, this is the number one place for waterfowl and migratory waders among the several "bird WHS" along the West African Coast. It is “better” than Djoudj and the Saloum Delta , and only the 2025 nomination Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau comes close but still has only 50% of its numbers. We spent a full day and a night in its core zone, stretching 170km along the Atlantic Coast.

The Banc d’Arguin is so rich because it lies next to an ocean upwelling that produces nutrient-rich cooler waters. This sets a whole food chain of phytoplankton-filter feeders-fish-birds-marine mammals in motion.

We approached it from the South, driving for 2.5 hours from the capital Nouakchott. This is mostly a good paved road, where our drivers even clocked 130km/h. The surrounding landscape is rather featureless, though you will see some dromedaries roaming around. We made a first stop at Mamghar, one of the seven fishing villages inside the park. The smell of fish is predominant here: the people leave their gutted fish drying out on the fences of the corrals …

2024 was my third year of full-time travel (read here about Day 0 , Year 1 and Year 2 ). It was a busy year with mainly visits to large countries that I had been to before (China, India, Japan, Argentina, Chile). I managed to ‘complete’ the latter 3.

There were memorable trips to Sangha Trinational in the Central African Republic (photo 1 is at Dzanga Bai), Patagonia (photo 3 is at Torres del Paine) and Japan’s Ogasawara Islands (photo 2 shows the fruit of the endemic pandan tree). I was also very pleased with spotting a Saiga in Saryarka.

You can find my updated Trip Planner here , including the actual ‘results’ of 2024. With an added total of 61 (54 new + 7 from the WHC), I am still right on track.

The focus now is on reaching 1,000

Reaching 1,000 has become a subgoal as it is such a nice, round number! If all goes to plan, this will happen in late November or early December 2025.

Factors that come into play are:

• Although I somewhat started to dislike them in 2024 (as there invariably are a couple of poor WHS in each cluster), I still need …