Joel Baldwin Profile
Traveller, blogger and videographer from Australia, retired at 35 and travelling the world, aiming to visit every UNESCO World Heritage site.
Documenting our journey on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldHeritageJourney
Recent Reviews Joel Baldwin
Ujung Kulon National Park
Joel Baldwin Australia - 30-Jul-19
We visited the Anak Krakatau area in July 2018, and it seems much has changed since Clyde's review below. We accessed the site via the same method: a private 3 hour drive from Jakarta starting at 5am, followed by a bouncing 1.5 hour speedboat ride from Carita Beach. In December 2018, not long after Clyde's visit, the main cone of Anak Krakatau collapsed. A tsunami thundered into the mainland of Java, killing over 400 people and injuring thousands more.
The volcano itself lost about 250m of height, along with all of its trees. The island is now just a barren wasteland of hard-packed ash with canyons riven by rainwater
Read OnPhuphrabat Historical Park (T)
Joel Baldwin Australia - 21-Jul-19
We visited Phuphrabat on a day trip from Udon Thani using a driver sourced via our hotel. It can comfortably be visited in a single day trip along with nearby Ban Chiang (though they are in opposite directions from UT).
Frederick Dawson below has given a good description of the site, where you climb slowly through a forest onto a sandstone plateau to find a group of tall rocks balanced in improbable locations. Geologically, they aren't glacial as one might expect - instead sandstone of varying densities that has eroded at varying rates.
Read OnArchaeological site of Philippi
Joel Baldwin Australia - 26-Jun-19
First things first: there is far less to see here than at most other ancient sites in Greece. The ruins are just that: ruins, and aside from the theatre, not particularly well-preserved. But it's the history here that really makes Philippi impressive. Given its name by King Phillip II of Macedon, father to Alexander the Great, it was also the site of a pivotal battle from Roman history. Just outside the city walls in 43 BC, an army lead by Julius Caesar's heirs Octavian and Mark Antony, faced off against an army lead by Caesar's assassins Cassius and Brutus. Caesar's heirs won the day, and the Roman Republic was no more
Read OnKakadu National Park
Joel Baldwin Australia - 25-Jun-19
In my opinion, Kakadu National Park is one of Australia's most impressive sites. Home to ancient culture, gorgeous natural scenery, and a colossal variety of plants and animals, there's a lot to love about Kakadu. We visited the park over three days in June 2016, which gives you ample time to explore the various areas.
To reach Kakadu, your best option is to drive in from Darwin - a roughly 2 hour, 150km drive. It's best to go during dry season (May-October) as this is also the coolest time of year. Wet season from November-April is hotter, stickier and of course wetter: many roads in Kakadu will be flooded and impassable.
Read OnAhmadabad
Joel Baldwin Australia - 13-Jun-19
As other reviewers have noted, Ahmedabad is very much not a tourist city. It's hot, dusty and chaotic - even by Indian standards. We spent three days here in February 2019 as a base for visiting the three Gujarat WH sites (here, Rani-ki-Vav and Champaner-Pavagadh), and honestly it's difficult to really appreciate the World Heritage aspects of the city.
To try and fully understand the place, we opted for the Heritage Walk Ahmedabad, a semi-official endeavour supported by the local government and a bargain at only 125rs. The tour went for a couple of hours from the Swaminarayan Mandir, through various pol districts and ended at the Jama Masjid. It was a nice way to see the various aspects of what makes the city: Hindu culture, Muslim culture, along with the unique pol houses, and our young local guide was quite enthusiastic. That said, most of the pol houses are crumbling and poorly maintained - maybe that makes them more authentic? But at quite a few points it was hard to distinguish which were the historic houses and which were far more modern
Read OnProfile Data
- Name
- Joel Baldwin
- Country
- Australia
- Most Impressive
- Historic Centre of Istanbul
- Proposal
- Isle of Skye, Scotland
- Website
- website
Recently Visited WHS
- Update 20.02.20
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Reviewed WHS
- Ujung Kulon National Park
- Archaeological site of Philippi
- Kakadu National Park
- Hill Forts of Rajasthan
- Rani-ki-Vav
- Ahmadabad
- Central Highlands
- Monastery of Horezu
- Verla Groundwood and Board Mill
- Petäjävesi Old Church
- Sammallahdenmäki
- Røros
- Tower of Hercules
- San Cristobal de La Laguna
- Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc
- Mount Etna
- Vegaøyan
- Royal Palace at Caserta
- Burgundy
- Arab-Norman Palermo
- Isole Eolie
- Ivrea
- Verona
- Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy
- Bellinzone
- Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch
- Strasbourg
- Neolithic Flint Mines at Spiennes
- Notre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai
- The Four Lifts
- Brugge
- Flemish Béguinages
- Van Nellefabriek
- Belfries
- Durham Castle and Cathedral
- Saltaire
- Kilimanjaro National Park
- Blenheim Palace
- Ironbridge Gorge
- Stonehenge
- Dorset and East Devon Coast
- Tower of London
Visited TWHS
- Alexandria, ancient remains and the new library (T)
- Ancient cities of Upper Myanmar : Innwa, Amarapura, Sagaing, Mingun, Mandalay (T)
- California Current Conservation Complex (T)
- Çanakkale (Dardanelles) and Gelibolu (Gallipoli) Battles Zones in the First World War (T)
- Chocolate Hills Natural Monument (T)
- Coron Island Natural Biotic Area (T)
- Cultural Landscape of Innsbruck-Nordkette/Karwendel (T)
- Diocletian's Palace and the Historical Nucleus of Split (extension) (T)
- Dreams in Stone - the palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee (T)
- El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area (T)
- Gaya Tumuli (T)
- Gdansk - Town of Memory and Freedom (T)
- Great Desert Landscapes (T)
- Großglockner High Alpine Road / Großglockner Hochalpenstraße (T)
- Historic Centre of Guimarães and Couros Zone (extension) (T)
- Historical City Centre of Yogyakarta (T)
- Historical Lisbon, Global City (T)
- Historical-town planning ensemble of Ston with Mali Ston, connecting walls, the Mali Ston Bay nature reserve, Stonsko Po (T)
- Inle Lake (T)
- Karst Valleys of Slovakia (T)
- Khor Dubai (T)
- Knights Fortifications around the Harbours of Malta (T)
- Le Palais de Justice de Bruxelles (T)
- Les Alpes de la Méditerranée (Monaco) (T)
- Les villes antiques de la Narbonnaise et leur territoire: Nimes, Arles, Glanum, aqueducs, via Domitia (T)
- Monuments, Sites and Cultural Landscape of Chiang Mai, Capital of Lanna (T)
- National Park "Hohe Tauern" (T)
- National Park (Taman Negara) of Peninsular Malaysia (T)
- Nice, la ville neuve née du tourisme, ou l’invention de la Riviera (T)
- Nîmes, l'Antiquité au présent (T)
- Phuphrabat Historical Park (T)
- Pobiti Kamani Natural Monument (T)
- Seoul City Wall (T)
- Sites funéraires et mémoriels de la Première Guerre mondiale (Front Ouest) (Belgium) (T)
- Southwestern Coast Tidal Flats (T)
- The Burren (T)
- The Central Axis of Beijing (including Beihai) (T)
- The city of Bergamo (T)
- The concept of the lenticular historical town core of Kosice City (T)
- The Historic City of Dublin (T)
- The historic town of Korcula (T)
- The Industrial Complexes at Ostrava (T)
- The Lofoten islands (T)
- The Old Town of Jakarta (Formerly old Batavia) and 4 Outlying Islands (Onrust, Kelor, Cipir dan Bidadari) (T)
- The Olive Grove Landscapes of Andalusia (T)
- The Porticoes of Bologna (T)
- The royal necropolis of the Thracian city of Seuthopolis – a serial site, extension of the Kazanlak Thracian tomb (T)
- The Royal Sites of Ireland: Cashel, Dún Ailinne, Hill of Uisneach, Rathcroghan Complex, and Tara Complex (T)
- Tokaj Wine Region (T)
- Wooden Monasteries of Konbaung Period : Ohn Don, Sala, Pakhangyi, Pakhannge, Legaing, Sagu, Shwe-Kyaung (Mandalay) (T)