Michael Novins Profile
Recent Reviews Michael Novins
Los Glaciares
Michael Novins United States - 07-Jan-22
I visited El Calafate in December 2021, where it was easy to arrange a day trip to Los Glaciares National Park. The trips seem to follow a similar itinerary -- boat tour to get up close to Perito Moreno Glacier, and then a couple of hours to visit the viewing platforms near the park's headquarters. El Calafate is a much more charming Patagonian town than Bariloche, where I spent a couple of days later in the same trip.
Read OnSocotra Archipelago
Michael Novins United States - 29-Nov-21
I visited Socotra in November 2021. At the time of my visit, Air Arabia provided Monday-only charter flights between Abu Dhabi and Socotra, so visitors were required to spend a week on Socotra. Given that all tourists arrive and depart at the same time, tour operators seem to follow the same general itinerary, although they apparently coordinate so that sites are not inundated with tourists on the same days. I went with Untamed Borders.
During the course of my week, we visited:
Day 1 (arrival): Delisha beach, not far from Hadibu, so seems like many visit this beach and sand dunes on the day of arrival
Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
Michael Novins United States - 23-Feb-20
In February 2020, I made my second visit to the small cloud forest reserves, about two hours northwest of Mexico City, where each year hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies from southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States spend the period between mid-November and mid-March. I took a bus from Terminal Observatorio in Mexico City to Zitacuaro, and then a taxi to JM Butterfly B&B in nearby Macheros (both the bus and the taxi cost MXN300, around US$15). JM Butterfly B&B arranged trips to Cerro Pelon (not very crowded and just a few minutes from the hotel) and El Rosario, the largest sanctuary, about 90 minutes from the hotel, but very crowded with visitors, although the most monarchs.
Read OnTrade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (T)
Michael Novins United States - 08-Jan-20
While returning from Mole National Park to Tamale, I stopped briefly in Larabanga in northern Ghana to visit its whitewashed mud-plaster and wooden-beam mosque, which will celebrate its six hundredth anniversary in two years, making it the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa and earning it the nickname the Mecca of West Africa.
Read OnMole National Park (T)
Michael Novins United States - 08-Jan-20
I visited northern Ghana in November 2019. I flew from Accra to Tamale in northern Ghana, about two hours by road from Mole National Park, the country’s largest protected area. Although the national park doesn’t have many animals, it is one of the best places in West Africa to see elephants and is one of few parks that allows visitors to approach the world’s largest land animal on foot. I was able to walk within ten meters of a large, broken-tusked, indifferent male, who was destroying small trees about fifty meters from Zaina Lodge, where I spent a few days.
Read OnProfile Data
- Name
- Michael Novins
- Country
- United States
Recently Visited WHS
- Update 26.12.21
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Visited WHS
Reviewed WHS
- Los Glaciares
- Socotra Archipelago
- Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- Meroe
- Gebel Barkal
- Nasca Lines
- Ancient ksours
- Virunga National Park
- Bolgar
- Lower Valley of the Omo
- Nubian Monuments
- Quseir Amra
- Erbil Citadel
- Pyramids (Memphis)
- Novgorod
- Tauric Chersonese
- Iguacu
- Ouro Preto
- São Luis
- Brasilia
- Al Zubarah
- Tropical Rainforest Sumatra
- Bom Jesus do Monte
- Oporto
- Island of Gorée
- Kunta Kinteh Island
- Takht-i-Bahi
- Rohtas Fort
- Makli, Thatta
- W-Arly-Pendjari Complex
- Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba
- Valparaiso
- Sewell Mining Town
- Churches of Chiloé
- Ischigualasto / Talampaya
- Peninsula Valdes
- Sammallahdenmäki
- Kaiping Diaolou
- Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries
- Potala Palace
- Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution
- Jeju
- Grand Canal
- Fort Jesus
- Ancient villages of Northern Syria
- Lamu Old Town
- Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino
- Komodo National Park
- Rainforests of the Atsinanana
- Mijikenda Kaya Forests
- Lord Howe Island
- Kuk
- Plain of Jars
- Nan Madol
Visited TWHS
Reviewed TWHS
- Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (T)
- Mole National Park (T)
- Gombe National Park (T)
- Gasumo, la source la plus méridionale du Nil (T)
- La résidence royale du Burundi: Le cas de Gishora (T)
- La réserve naturelle de la Rusizi (T)
- Old Fourah Bay College Building (T)
- Western Area Peninsula National Park (T)
- Jerash Archaeological City (Ancient Meeting Place of East and West) (T)
- Ver-o-Peso (T)
- Amazonia Theaters (T)
- Brazilian Fortresses Ensemble (T)
- Sya, centre historique de Bobo-Dioulasso (T)
- Zone Giraphe (T)
- Ceremonial Centres of the Early Micronesian States: Nan Madol and Lelu (T)
- Noréas de Hama (T)
- Ecosystèmes Marins de l'Archipel des Comores (T)
- Sultanats Historiques des Comores (T)
- The Qutb Shahi Monuments of Hyderabad (T)
- White Mosque in Ramle (T)
- The Site of Ancient Town of Pyanjekent (T)
- Grenadines Island Group (T)
- Casablanca, Ville du XXème siécle, carrefour d'influences (T)
- Cellular Jail, Andaman Islands (T)
- Centre historique de Jacmel (T)
- Torres del Paine and Bernardo O'Higgins National Parks, Region of Magallanes (T)
- (T)
- Chobe Linyanti System (T)
- Historic zone of Basseterre (T)
- The African Great Rift Valley - The Maasai Mara (T)
- Civil Rights Movement Sites (T)
- Apamee (Afamia) (T)
- Cretaceous Dinosaur Fossil Sites in the Mongolian Gobi (T)
- Coral Stone Mosques of Maldives (T)
- Abraj Al-Kuwait (T)
- Kaieteur National Park (T)
- City Hall, Georgetown (T)
- Ancien Hôpital Albert Schweitzer de Lambaréné (T)
Top 50 Missing Sites
- Amritsar
- Bagan
- Chicago School of Architecture
- Copper Canyon
- Death Valley National Park
- Devils Island (on French Guiana)
- Dzongs of Bhutan
- Ephesus
- Historic University Towns of Oxford and Cambridge
- Kaieteur National Park, Iwokrama Forest and the Kanuku Mountains
- Major Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright
- Minoan palaces of Crete
- Nan Madol
- Okavango Delta
- Plain of Jars / Sites Mégalithiques de la province de Xieng Khouang
- Scrovegni's Chapel
- Tanna Island
- The Soviet Architecture of Moscow
- Torres del Paine National Park
- Varanasi
Top 200 WHS
- Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou
- Djenné
- Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras
- Acropolis
- Agrigento
- Ephesus
- Villa Romana del Casale
- Pompei
- Baalbek
- Leptis Magna
- Segovia
- Amphitheater of El Jem
- Pont du Gard
- Timgad
- Volubilis
- Mérida
- Aleppo
- Historic Cairo
- Damascus
- Medina of Marrakesh
- Medina of Fez
- Samarkand
- Bukhara
- Kathmandu Valley
- Luang Prabang
- Ajanta Caves
- Sigiriya
- Potala Palace
- Borobudur
- Mogao Caves
- Longmen Grottoes
- Pyramids (Memphis)
- Taj Mahal
- Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor
- Göreme NP
- Lalibela
- Bethlehem
- Meteora
- Vatican City
- Piazza del Duomo (Pisa)
- Saint Catherine Area
- Mont-Saint-Michel
- Westminster
- Chartres Cathedral
- Cologne Cathedral
- Rila Monastery
- Canterbury
- Amiens Cathedral
- Durham Castle and Cathedral
- Sydney Opera House
- Kremlin and Red Square
- Palau de la Musica Catalana & Hospital de Sant Pau
- Su Nuraxi di Barumini
- Cliff of Bandiagara
- Great Zimbabwe
- Meroe
- Ouro Preto
- Melaka and George Town
- Cartagena
- Quito
- Antigua Guatemala
- Oaxaca and Monte Alban
- Churches and Convents of Goa
- Guanajuato
- Salvador de Bahia
- Old Town of Galle
- Island of Saint-Louis
- Panamá
- Colonia del Sacramento
- Old Havana
- Lima
- Sucre
- Uluru
- Ancient villages of Northern Syria
- Rio de Janeiro
- Fujisan
- Namib Sand Sea
- Virunga National Park
- Monticello
- Ancient Thebes
- Grand Canyon
- Ancient Kyoto
- Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries
- Komodo National Park
- Aldabra Atoll
- Galapagos Islands
- Yellowstone
- Ngorongoro
- Serengeti
- Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
- Cape Floral Region
- Redwood
- Tropical Rainforest Sumatra
- Tasmanian Wilderness
- Ilulissat Icefjord
- Khajuraho Group of Monuments
- Mahabalipuram
- Temple of Heaven
- Sub-Antarctic Islands
- Qutb Minar
- Selimiye Mosque
- Ha Long Bay – Cat Ba Archipelago
- Andrefana Dry Forests
- Cuzco
- Mexico City and Xochimilco
- West Norwegian Fjords
- Rock Islands
- Great Barrier Reef
- Peninsula Valdes
- Socotra Archipelago
- Brazilian Atlantic Islands
- Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino
- Maritime Greenwich
- Siena
- Granada
- Dubrovnik
- Kraków
- Vienna
- Brugge
- Budapest
- Cesky Krumlov
- Seville
- Auschwitz Birkenau
- Genbaku Dome
- Statue of Liberty
- Agra Fort
- Crac des Chevaliers
- Hill Forts of Rajasthan
- Himeji-jo
- Great Wall
- Wieliczka and Bochnia Royal Salt Mines
- Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
- Sagarmatha National Park
- Kilimanjaro National Park
- Machu Picchu
- Persepolis
- Petra
- Nemrut Dag
- Palmyra
- Rapa Nui
- Imperial Palace
- Versailles
- Schönbrunn
- Fontainebleau
- Lower Valley of the Awash
- Dinosaur Provincial Park
- Sabratha
- Amsterdam Canal Ring
- Florence
- St. Petersburg
- Paris, Banks of the Seine
- Grand Place, Brussels
- Mesa Verde
- Teotihuacan
- Tikal National Park
- Chichen-Itza
- Palenque
- El Tajin
- Stonehenge
- Nasca Lines
- Megalithic Temples of Malta
- Kakadu National Park
- Works of Antoni Gaudí
- Central Amazon Conservation Complex
- Pantanal
- Three parallel rivers of Yunnan
- Victoria Falls
- Lake Baikal
- Okavango Delta
- Iguazu National Park
- Lake Malawi
- Everglades
- Altamira Cave
- Decorated cave of Pont d'Arc
- Angkor
- Ellora Caves
- Mountain Railways of India
- Venice and its Lagoon
- Istanbul
- Rome
- Old City of Jerusalem
- Sana'a
- Prague
- Stone Town of Zanzibar
- City of Bath
- Edinburgh
- Naples
- The trulli of Alberobello
- Hawaii Volcanoes
- Volcanoes of Kamchatka
- Giant's Causeway