ZCTLife Profile
I’m trying to visit world heritage sites (and other places) by zero carbon emission vehicle. Feel free to read more about my visits to date on my ad-free blog. Thanks,
Ned
P.S. Wow, lots of serious travelers here! OK, I’ll add places I visited before giving up on carbon travel.
Recent Reviews ZCTLife
Writing-on-Stone / Áísínai’pi
ZCTLife USA - 17-Jun-25
This Alberta provincial park WHS is still a sacred site for First Nations people, so, the site is carefully managed both to protect and interpret the 2,500 years of writing found here. Of course, plenty of tourists also come for camping, to explore along the river, and for hiking, but the rock art is the star. Be sure to take a guided tour, as the rangers are exceptional. Some of the art can be seen hiking by yourself, but the best examples are only visible by tours. I also needed help identifying and interpreting what I was viewing. Amateurs often ascribe fanciful stories to the art, so most visitors need someone who understands the culture deeply to bridge the 2,500 year gap and to help us imagine the scenes from long ago
Read OnWhale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino
ZCTLife USA - 07-Jun-25
Every winter, gray whales enter the bays on the Pacific side of the Baja peninsula to breed and rear young. The warm water is high saline and shallow enough that an adult whale can often touch bottom with their tails with their heads above the surface. Like giant hot tubs, these blue lagoons are perfect for adult whales to meet up and mate. Like a kiddie pool, these nurseries are perfect for babies to practice holding their breath, to open their eyes underwater and to learn to swim
Read OnAncient Jericho
ZCTLife USA - 23-May-25
Unfortunately, due to my then wife damaging my phone in the Dead Sea and our subsequent divorce (unrelated events), I don’t have any photos of our trip to the Holy Land.
Jericho is at least 10,000 years old, probably 12,000, maybe older. Americans have trouble wrapping our heads around such long ago time periods. Jericho dates back to the beginnings of agricultural settlements around the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia. The last Ice Age was ending and a warming world enabled people to settle permanently. Jericho as a community likely predates those first agricultural settlements, although such simple groups leave no traces. The walls are 9,000 years old—the oldest known walled city in the world—, and that’s of course what made the city so famous. But the Bible story of Jericho (Joshua 6:1-27) only dates back 3,500 years, and the song less than 200 years
Read OnAyutthaya
ZCTLife USA - 06-May-25
Many years ago, I traveled with the famed Lonely Planet book, South East Asia on a Shoestring, the storied ‘Yellow Bible’ of discount travelers, my prize possession. I remember traveling around Thailand in those days, taking colorful 3 wheeled Tuk-Tuks, eating simple Pad Thai street food, and staying at the cheapest guest house hostels I could find. I remember watching a truck filled with children stop at the end of a touristy street, unload two dozen street urchins, and drive to the other end of the street to pick them up after they had collected their begging money
Read OnOgasawara Islands
ZCTLife USA - 23-Apr-25
I traveled here years ago while teaching English in Tokyo. I had a vacation, had already traveled widely, and this place caught my eye, for its obscurity. Administratively, the islands are part of the city of Tokyo, even though they’re on the same latitude as Okinawa, much further out into the Pacific than any other Japanese islands. Iwo Jima, where the US Marines raised their flag on 23 February 1945, is part of the island group, but civilian visitation is almost completely restricted. Another island was also off limits when I visited, due to a Japanese military base. At the time, traveling by ferry in the cheapest class seemed like an interesting travel experience, and I remember lying around on fake tatami mats, eating snacks and drinking beer
Read OnRecently Visited WHS
- Update 23.05.25
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10 Best Missing
Visited WHS
Rating StatsRedwood 5Chaco Culture 4.5Mammoth Cave 4.5Québec 4.5Djerba 4Medina of Tunis 3.5Puebla 3.5West Lake 3.5Tequila 3El Pinacate 2.5Hopewell 2.5Lake Baikal 2.5Morelia 2.5Poverty Point 2.5Reviewed WHS
Visited TWHS
- Big Bend National Park (T)
- Brooklyn Bridge (T)
- California Current Conservation Complex (T)
- Central Park (T)
- Chapultepec Woods, Hill and Castle (T)
- City of York: historic urban core (T)
- Civil Rights Movement Sites (T)
- Dayton Aviation Sites (T)
- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's Home-Study Museum (T)
- Ellis Island (T)
- Habitat troglodytique et le monde des ksour du Sud tunisien (T)
- Mount Vernon (T)
- Petrified Forest National Park (T)
- Temples, Shrines and other structures of Ancient Kamakura (T)
- White Sands National Monument (T)
Reviewed TWHS