UNESCO recognizes Uvs Nuur within the Asia region.

I think North America, Latin America and the Caribbean should be combined to form one region. Fairly simple.

The Americas and the Caribbean
Asia and the Pacific
Arab States and the Holy Land (including Israel)
Africa
Europe

It also seems to "recognise" it within the European region. Result for a "Region 1" search below -
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/?search=&searchSites=&search_by_country=&region=1&searc h_yearinscribed=&themes=&criteria_restrication=&type=&media=&order=country&descriptio n=

(Els -do you know why this UNESCO search is coming up with 492 sites in Europe and N America when in a post yesterday you, I am sure correctly, said it was 491!? - "by the way, there are 491 WHS in Europe/North America. One 40 of those WHS are in North America, so 451 in Europe total". Where is the difference - is it Uvs Nuur?)


Too big a change from UNESCO I fear - it mixes its regions so losing the ability to get back to UNESCO definitions, South and North America are very different regions for "travelling" in and justify being split. The Caribbean and Central American area is possibly different - parts are as easy to get to from N America as S Europe is for N Europe. It could be split into another sub group I guess. I wouldn't "mess" with the current definitions of Arab States just for Israel which is to a large extent a "European" destination anyway in terms of location, ease of travel, etc.

The difference between World Traveller & European Traveller. Both maps equal 176 world heritage sites.

Latin America and the Carribean + Africa + Texas + Arabian Peninsula

4 European Countries with 40+ world heritage sites = Italy, Spain, Germany, France

:) It would be a very odd travel itinerary, but it does make a point. Also is that map showing Texas succeeding from the USA? I have a friend who will be happy to hear this.

Haha, no I just included nearby areas that had additional WHS to make the #176. Therefore, Texas and some of the countries on the Arabian Peninsula fit. Sometimes I think when the WHC is discussing gaps in the list, creating a representational list, decreasing nominations per year, and the credibility of the list - they should project a graphic like this! It might just prevent proposals by Germany, Turkey, France (or others) that maintain the status quo.

This map puts the challenge of visiting ALL world heritage sites into perspective. Yes, in 4 countries you can get a huge amount of WHS, but for most of the remaining countries, WHS are often spread out. Moreover, because of the ever-growing list, they can pop-up anywhere!

Two technical things, how did you get the pictures to appear bigger on this forum? when ever I have tried in the past they have been tiny. Or maybe it is just the new forum lay out.

Also where did you source that map from?

Partly new layout I think, I did nothing in particular to make it larger, the image must have been large.

http://www.travbuddy.com/world-travel-map

Thanks for the link, and good to know pictures are a little larger now.

As stated by others, I think visiting all sites is pretty much impossible, e.g. most people are not allowed into Saudi Arabia, some places are and have been dangerous for a long time now, some have very restricted access policies, and for most of us money is limited ... But for the fun of it, let's try to calculate what it would take...

First of all let's try to put an average effort for visiting a site. If it's one day (1 WHS/day) you would still need to travel constantly a little less than 3 years to visit all of them. That is if you started at zero.

However, 1 WHS/day seems rather high for multiple reasons.

* Logistics: Several sites may not take much time on site. But loads of time to get there and away to the next WHS. Let's take Madeira. There are direct flights to Madeira from most European airports, so it's not that hard to get there. But after you ticked of the forest you are stuck on the (presumably nice) island and you can't continue your travels.

* Hitting the breaks: For efficiency reasons (cost, time, interest) most of us do hotspots. Paris is great and there is loads to tick off your list. But there are only so many Parises, Romes, Londons .. out there.

* Poor Countries 1: Logistics in poor countries are often terrible (streets, railways, ...). E.g. a trip from Goa to Hampi (350km) turns into a 3 day experience. Something you could have done as an easy day trip in Germany.

* Poor Countries 2: Add to this that a country like Germany is packed with sites (40 on 357.168 km²) while a sub continent like India isn't (32 on 3.287.590 km²). So you have to travel further on slower roads to get from site a to site b.

So let's try a new calculation (again erring on the side of optimism):

* 2 WHS / day: 200 sites globally = 100 Days
* 1 WHS / day: 300 sites globally = 300 Days
* 0.5 WHS / day: 300 sites globally = 150 Days
* 0.33 WHS / day: 200 sites globally = 600 Days
* 0.2 WHS / day: 31 sites globally = 155 Days (e.g. those australian islands)

Totals = 1755 Days (almost 5 years constant travel, 1,7 days per WHS).

If you have already visited sites, bear in mind that these will probably stem from the first two categories, i.e. the low effort ones.

Now this number is still too low:

* Going Home: Unless you are constantly on the road, you will spend time going home. Let's assume you travel home every month (4 weeks travel) and that this commute takes 2 days, then it's another 100 days. And obviously the time you spend at home doesn't help either.

* TWHS: You will also need to visit a few TWHS. These obviously will not help you on your immediate count and may very well not be inscribed (Naumburg). But they require time nonetheless. Five years equals around 150 THWS being reviewed (250 days if above's average applies).

* Access restrictions: Having sites in close proximity does not always mean being able to tick them off on the same day. For many sites access restrictions are in place. I needed to go to Milan 3 f!§"$!" times to see Leonardos Last Supper as I couldn't get tickets twice. Bayreuth Opera is being renovated and generally not open to the public. Spienes was also closed for several years. Basically, you can't always get the optimal itinerary and may need to come back at a later time again.

Finally, why this number may still be too high: I do some crazy stuff to cross of sites from my list, it's still a holiday. I like to visit people, relax at the beach and take in non WHS tourism sites.

duplicate

Another factor that most people forget is visa requirement, if you are a passport holder of developed countries e.g. US, UK, EU, JP it is more easy to travel as most countries in the world waive visa requirement or issue visa on arrival, so no problem at all for quick trip but if you are a passport holder of developing countries, you need to arrange to get visa before your entry, and not every countries have embassy or consular in these countries which need more time and money than other tourists from developed country. For example, while most of us can travel from Canada to Chile with no need of visa require, but Chinese need visa from every countries along the way except Panama, Equador and Peru!!

This category covers sites that take 5 days to visit (including getting there and away, and be on the move to a next WHS f.e. at an international airport). Some even take more than 5 days:
- Macquarie Island and NZ Sub-Antarctic (see the cruise that I linked to a few posts back; it takes 14 days to cover these 2 WHS)
- Henderson Island (the shortest cruise calling on this Island I could find was 25 days; it also stops at Easter Island so, 12.5 days )
- Bikini Atoll (visitable by private yachts, or you could join a shipwreck diving tour - at least 3 days one way from Australia)
- Phoenix Islands (by private or chartered yachts only, and I found a 15 day cruise http://www.cruisecompete.com/itins/silver_discoverer_cruises_bbfihdah.html
- Gough Island (22 days cruise http://www.cruisecompete.com/vacations/visits/gough_island/1) (fortunately this cruise ends at Cape Town, where you can easily pick up a few more)
- Ogasawara Islands (ferry takes 25 hours, return ferry starts 3 days later, so just over 5 days round trip)
- Heard & McDonald Island (cruise 25 days, if it ever runs http://www.auroraexpeditions.com.au/expeditions/expedition/south-indian-ocean-voyage- heard-island#itinerary)

I could not find much more in this "über-difficult" range. Most of the difficult ones seem doable within 5 days.

P.S. Maybe someone can check these findings? I feel a connection coming up!

I made a better overview page: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/stats.html
It adds up to 1032 sites instead of 1031, because of the Uvs Nuur transcontinental WHS
I still have slightly different numbers than on the Unesco website, I don't know why. 'My' countries are linked to a continent (not the individual WHS)

P.S.: they have the Seychelles as Africa (rightly so), I'll change that; they have Jerusalem linked to Jordan (from Europe > Arab States), I have it in Israel on the website

Much better layout but the Colour combination is unreadable!


I have checked the island WHSites listed above and none of them has even an airstrip there or very nearby - Gough/Inaccessible, Macquarie, Heard/McDonald and NZ Sub-antarctic so there seems absolutely NO physical way of getting to and from them within 5 days as ship is the only transport means available -whatever it costs!
However there is an issue about some others which do have an airstrip or one nearby. In theory someone with with extra pull via direct access to the President of the country, a private helicopter, mega-mega bucks etc etc etc might be able to get to and from these islands within 5 days using these BUT as far as I can tell "normal" people could not!!
a. Wrangel. The Russian Miliatary seems to have an arirfield/strip there at the Mys Shmidta settlement (The AB refers to it). This article seems to describe recent activity http://tass.ru/en/russia/794880 . Perhpas Roman Abramovich mught get President Putin to allow him to use it but I have no evidence that anyone else could!! To all intents and purposes Wrangle is only accessible a far as I can see by ship - and this would take more than 5 days return!
b. Aldabra
We visited by Ship from the African mainland via the Comores (taking more than 2.5 days to get onwards to Mahe) but there is an airstrip at the nearest other island - Assumption. To get to Aldabra from there you would have had to arrange first a private flight and then for your yacht (!!!) to pick you up or for a charter yacht to be there waiting (In which case you might as well have used it all the way from Mahe??) We met a small group who had "pull" through the UK ambassador to the Seychelles and they had been granted the VERY special privilege of being met at Assumption by a research boat from Aldabra (and had promptly crashed it on the reefs at Aldabra due to late arrival and they had to hitch on to Mahe with us!!).

Regarding land based sites. There are some in Africa which I suspect would take longer than 5 days to get to/from by land from a city with an International airport BUT if one had loads of money and chartered your own plane to the nearest airstrip I suspect that all of them could probably be done within the 5 days - I think of eg Garamba, Okapi.
Finally I think of Sagamartha NP. If you fly from Kathmandu to Lukla you reach Namche Bazar on at the end of Day 2. When I did the trip one didn't pass the park entrance and pay the money until the climb out of Namche on day 3. Looking at the map it appears that the Park boundary is before Namche so I guess one could just reach the boundary, "tick" off the WHS and return to Lukla to fly back to Kathmandu on day 4!!! But would one??? Sagamartha NP is a 5 day plus visit in all practicality

It should be readable (it's black on white), maybe you have to refresh the page as it holds an old template in its cache