Today or tomorrow, the 10.000th review of a (T)WHS will be submitted to this website. I am not exactly sure when the first one was (we didn’t log the dates at that time), but looking back in the Waybackmachine it must have been late 2001. It was this one about Dorset and the East Devon Coast by Norman Day. On 13 November 2003, I had the first e-mail exchange with Solivagant about his first review – of Gough Island . That was review number 194. So it all took off slowly!
The 10,000 reviews have been submitted by 1758 different community members and are divided among 1137 WHS and 1104 TWHS. 6,879 reviews include a photo.
Development
The first reviews were mostly comment-style posts, without photos. These limitations were also set by the technical set-up of the website at the time.
We had a ‘Rohtas and Idanre’ phase when local youth were tapping away at Pakistani and Nigerian internet cafes. You can still see some of their efforts in the 18 reviews of Idanre Hill and 15 of Rohtas Fort (and that is after cleaning up). And there was a short-lived Blogger phase around 2017 which resulted in a lot of Don’ts , the main one being no commercial links allowed!
Nowadays, reviews are almost exclusively written by subscribed community members, not the occasional visitors. They usually have a length of 300-500 words, use white space for easier reading and are accompanied by a picture.
Photos were added more and more and bigger sizes got allowed. Someone cleverly thought of using the 4-in-1 photo solution, which makes the best of the allowed photo sizes and is now very common. The oldest I could find was a double photo before 2006 by Solivagant of Abomey , a triple photo by Kyle in 2010 of Mammoth Cave , and the quadruple by Solivagant again in 2013 of the Kasbah of Algiers .
The latest development was the inclusion of the first ChatGPT-aided review by Nan.
Styles
The reviews are free-format and I think it is good to have as little restraints as possible. Nevertheless, a few distinguishable ‘styles’ have developed:
The Overview
The most common type is the Overview: explain a bit about the background of the site and then describe the parts that you visited from a personal perspective. This is especially well-executed regarding European WHS by Hubert and Clyde.
The (mis)Adventure story
The yearly Tsunami Award highlights these stories of adventure, named after community member Tsunami who is the king of the misadventure story. Past winners include Nan on Hiking in Laponia (2019), Zos M. on Sanqingshan (2020), Nan and Tsunami on Rosia Montana (2021), and Philipp on Nemrut Dag (2022).
The Template
Some reviewers have developed their own templates in which they supply the reviews. This may include private scoring systems and a 'getting there on public transport'-section.
The Literary effort
Most of the reviewers aren't native English speakers, so grammatical errors or odd choices of words will always be there. And that's fine. On the other side of the spectrum are those who have grown up in an English-speaking country ánd have a way with words: read the reviews by Squiffy for example for a more poetic approach.
The PhD
The PhD (thanks to Jacob for naming this style) is a long review that covers all (OUV, nomination history, visitor experience) and is based on meticulous research. It substantiates its findings with links to sources. It’s almost exclusively the domain of Solivagant, although Frederic made an admirable effort lately too by posting over 2,000 words and including the scientific names of the wildlife. Some of these reviews are so all-encompassing that it is hard to add anything substantial even 10-15 years later.
The Rant
I’d like to see more of those! Zoe does good rants. I especially like her Andaman Sea review , in which she manages to offend both the Russians and the Thai. We probably all remember as well when she dismissed a country’s whole Tentative List with the best starting line so far.
Future
Of course, the reviews will continue to be the backbone of this website. If you’d like to write one, think of (T)WHS:
- that have not been reviewed yet, or not in recent years (check the listings for WHS and TWHS )
- where significant new developments have taken place (eg. a new site museum has opened)
- that have a location that has not been described before
- that cover a topic that you are passionate about
Or just when you have an interesting story to tell.
Reviews are very rarely rejected, although they may not be published on the homepage if you add one to a very common WHS or don’t offer much beyond ‘I have been there and I liked it’. Do read the reviews the site already has – do you really have anything to add? Remember that you write for an audience of like-minded people and not on your personal social media.
Also, look at the photos shown with the other reviews and try not to repeat them – can you add one from a different perspective?
Do you have any suggestions regarding the future of the reviews? Which styles or which reviewers do you enjoy the most?