The Quest for 1,100 visited WHS - Year 3
Community – January 5, 2025 by Els Slots2024 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 …
2024 - A Year in Review(s)
Website – December 29, 2024 by Els SlotsIt’s the year's final week – time to squeeze in another yearly overview of the reviews submitted to this website. 2024 was a rather dull year at the WHC , with 24 new sites inscribed at a poor average rating of 2.79/5. Thanks to Astraftis we had a last-minute meetup in Brussels . For Nan and myself, it was also the year that we were forced to move the website to a different hosting provider – which proved to be a blessing in the end as the performance of the website has much improved.
Community Travel
Overall, there has been a steady increase at the ‘ top ’ without any new kids on the block. Atila has joined Zoë in the over-1,000 club. We now have 4 members with more than 900 visited WHS, 5 more with over 800 WHS, and 11 more with over 700 WHS. And 39 members in total have seen over 50% of the WHS!
Memorable Reviews
We saw 581 new reviews published, 71 more than last year but still a far cry from pre-Covid levels such as 891 in 2019. 94 different people wrote them, also significantly more than last year; …
Drive-by Visits
Community – December 22, 2024 by Els SlotsWhen I was in Kaziranga NP last month, I noticed that the authorities were constructing viewpoints along the main road that runs south of the park’s borders. From those, you can look into the core zone which starts maybe 50m beyond. During the season, you’ll certainly see rhinos grazing there and you’ll have the wide-open views of the landscape that is typical of the western part of the park. It may even be interesting to visit during the wet season to see where the animals take shelter (preventing the road isn’t closed due to flooding), as the effects of the water level fluctuations are a significant part of Kaziranga’s OUV. This insight prompted me to have a look at the value of Drive-by visits.
The ”problem” with Drive-by visits
The main issue with Drive-bys is that you generally do not enter the core zone of a WHS. I am not obsessed with this as seeing the OUV always trumps it for me. We have WHS that are fully closed and then we all ‘tick’ seeing the OUV from the buffer zone or as close as you can get.
Another issue is that while ‘driving …
Top Tips for India
Country – December 15, 2024 by Els SlotsSo I have just returned from my best India trip ever! I stayed energetic til the end and could have easily extended it by a week or so if the visa had allowed me to. I managed to visit 15 new WHS; I had already visited 24 across my 4 previous trips so I am missing just 4 now to complete India. The itinerary can be found here . Bear in mind with the tips below that I visited mostly state-level places of interest, and not the more foreign-touristy parts such as the Golden Triangle (where you'll definitely encounter more touts).

1. Fly!
43 WHS, 28 States – where to start? Even after 4 previous trips I still had (and have) so much of India to cover. I suggest keeping it to one state at a time for a “normal” traveller on a 2-3 week trip. For a WH Traveller who wants to raise his/her score, it’s best to combine several clusters. I made good use of the domestic flight network of IndiGo, which connects most state capitals and other major hubs. For a mere 75 EUR or so you’ll find yourself in the middle of the next cluster to …
WHS #941: Mahabodhi Temple
Site – December 8, 2024 by Els SlotsThe Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodh Gaya is easily reached nowadays in about 2 hours from Patna via a 4-lane highway that bypasses the city of Gaya. The town of Bodh Gaya is essentially a slum, with desperately poor living conditions and full of people whose main goal in life is to get the most out of the Buddhist pilgrims. India shows itself here at its worst: noisy rickshaws, begging children, severely deformed people hoping for compassion, con artists of all kinds, and dirty children made to perform circus acts by their mothers. They all ply the main street leading up to the temple.
The entrance policy confused me when I tried to find out about it online beforehand, but despite the tiresome stroll through town, it’s actually not chaotic at all. Entrance is free, except when you want to take pictures; then a 100rs fee is required, payable at the " Camera Ticket Counter ". Phones are not allowed in, but it seems that when you buy a camera ticket this is waived as well (I did not try).
First going through a new gate with the reassuring label "World Heritage Site" overhead, you …
WHS #939: Kaziranga
Site – December 1, 2024 by Els SlotsKaziranga is the site I looked forward to the most on this India trip, and it certainly did not disappoint. I splurged on staying for 2 nights in the upmarket Diphlu River Lodge (335 EUR p/n all-in). They offer safari packages similar to the lodges in African national parks, including all meals and activities. Its location turned out to be a bit noisy (it lies close to the main road Jorhat-Guwahati) and the somewhat stiffish service didn’t quite reach the African Safari Lodge level, where understated elegance and convivial atmosphere often appear effortless. On the plus side: I had my private car and guide who took me on generously long (4-5 hour) game drives and steered away from the crowds. The food and the room were excellent as well.
The park is only open from November to April, as the rest of the year the area suffers from the effects of serious flooding covering up to 80% of its surface. Markings on park buildings show how high the water reached in certain years. Both man and animal flee to higher-lying areas such as man-made “islands” called chapories and the main road. This also means that …
WHS #936: Indian Sundarbans
Site – November 24, 2024 by Els SlotsAs I had been to the Bangladeshi Sundarbans already in 2007, the visit to its Indian counterpart felt superfluous: this should be one transboundary WHS of course. And it felt even more like a chore because the visitor experience on the Indian side doesn’t come exactly recommended: I scouted for a “better” lodge to stay the night or a more imaginative tour, but all come with mixed reviews (or worse) online. So I settled for a private day trip from Kolkata . This one also suffered from poor communication beforehand, but fortunately, the logistics on the day itself worked perfectly.
A driver picked me up at 5 a.m. from my Kolkata hotel. The drive to Godhkali this early in the morning takes only 2h15 minutes (on the way back, it would be 3 hours). When you leave Kolkata’s city limits, the typical landscape dominated by creeks and channels begins.
In Godhkali, I was handed over like a postal package to a ferryman who put me on land at the next island, and on his turn delivered me to a waiting taxi that drove me in 15 minutes across the island to another dock. This is …
WHS #932: Champaner-Pavagadh
Site – November 17, 2024 by Els SlotsChampaner-Pavagadh is one of the lesser-known Indian WHS. It is also one of the least appreciated by members of our community, although it still amounts to a decent 3 stars. The Tripadvisor reviews about this site are much more positive. One of its main issues is that it is hard to summarize what it is actually about. As the name suggests, it comprises two (contiguous) parts: Champaner (the remains of an Islamic pre-Mughal city) and Pavagadh (a hill with an important Hindu pilgrimage site). They are linked through their prime setting, the hill providing the water the city needed. As it was still relatively early in my 2024 India journey, I deep-dived into it via a day trip on public transport from Vadodara (better known locally under its old name Baroda).
The bus ride to Pavagadh takes about an hour and costs 40~60rs. Buses frequently leave from bays 15-18 at the central bus station; signage is only in Gujarati but just follow the colourful pilgrims on board. From Pavagadh bus station you have to walk about 500m to the right around the walls of the citadel, to where you can see the Jami Masjid – …
Workers' Assembly Halls (Belgium)
Site – November 10, 2024 by Els SlotsThe Workers' Assembly Halls , a nomination led by Denmark, is one of the more prominent upcoming serial transnational initiatives. It is aiming for inscription in 2027. They represent the international democratic labour movement of the years 1850 to 1950. This isn’t a popular subject in 2024, but “we” (the workers in the countries where the labour movement had a significant impact) owe perks like the 8-hour workday and holiday bonuses to them.
Among the 7 proposed Assembly Halls in 6 countries is “De Vooruit” in Ghent, Belgium. It doesn’t feature on the country’s tentative list yet, but it is definitely part of the final selected group that is preparing a nomination and it has received funding to do so from the Flanders government. I visited it yesterday on a guided tour.
The ‘Vooruit’ (Dutch for “Forward”) dates from 1913, the year Ghent hosted an International Exhibition . It seemed a good idea to the local socialist movement to celebrate its cause via a grand building, which was to be situated along the main road between the railway station and the city centre. The construction was funded by the eponymous socialist cooperative, which managed a …
Maddeningly Close
Community – November 3, 2024 by Els SlotsThere’s a forum topic dating back to 2014 already on this subject: WHS where you have been very close to but missed out on for some reason. We know them as “Near Misses” as well, although the result (frustration instead of relief) is the opposite of a “near miss” in safety procedures where disaster was just avoided; our Near Miss is when you were nearby, but you missed the WHS.
I have been very close to 12 (4%) out of the 293 I haven’t visited yet. How did those happen?
Visited long before inscription
First, I have two recent WHS where I had been very near early in my travel life:
- In 1994, I thoroughly explored the Chinese province of Yunnan for a month with a small Dutch group. I have 3 WHS ‘ticks’ as a result of it. But then, in 2023, there was the “ Ancient Tea Plantations of Pu'er ” – in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan. Unfortunately, I don’t have a travel diary from that trip. I studied my photos, but the closest I could find was Jingzhen (35km away) and some Dai and Bulang villages to the south of …