I am so happy to present to you today the fully refurbished version of this website. A new design, a new back-end, lots of additional pictures and new pieces of content.

Why?

This is already a rather old website; the domain was registered on July 31, 2000. Since then, it has continued to expand, with ever more content created by significantly more members. Today, we have almost 2000 active users, 82000 page views a month, 10808 reviews, and xxx images. All the time, the technical back end of the website essentially stayed the same as when it was my private blog: a mostly self-coded website.

We had been working on a new version centered around a true content management system (CMS) on and off for the better part of seven years. It had been clear for a while that CMS features would benefit this site significantly and that many wishes for improvements were not possible in the legacy setup. But COVID, our travels, and the massive amount of data to migrate were insurmountable obstacles.

Then two things happened:

• In 2024, our hosting provider for a decade terminated our contract as we were crashing their servers due to the load. As …

The Community Perspective of our Mount Kenya site page only states: “This site requires an up-to-date review.” – I have hinted at it already several times, wondering how a site that has been ticked by 63 members has only had one, tiny review dating back to 2006. I would guess that 90% of the “visits” here were drive-by ones. Even then, the mountain, with its characteristic rugged, glaciated peaks, isn’t always easy to see, as it is often covered in clouds. This is the best I could get, at 7 in the morning from the pool area of my lodge:

Mount Kenya is known for its several vegetation bands with Afro-alpine flora from the base to the peak. I stayed for 3 nights at the Naro Moru River Lodge , a little oasis outside of the park borders, where you can experience the vegetation and wildlife of the lower regions of the mountain at 1,970m altitude. At night, you may hear the screaming of the tree hyraxes, and during the day, you’ll find many birds typical for the region (the lodge’s bird list includes a significant number of 399 species). The Cinnamon-chested bee-eaters put on a good …

The Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests along the East Coast of Kenya comprise former fortified settlements ( kayas ) in an undisturbed forest setting, which still fulfill a sacred role in the belief of Mijikenda peoples. It's such a messy WHS: it is what you get after an AB overrule where the documents haven’t been adjusted to the final decision. When I started preparing for my June 2025 visit, I found out that we had its site history and name (it starts with “Sacred”) all wrong, a rare occurrence nowadays. Originally, it had 36 locations, now there are 8 according to the map section at the UNESCO website, but that’s an error also. Kaya Kinondo was explicitly excluded in the inscription decision . I have alerted the UNESCO WH Bureau to the mistake, but never got a reply and the error persists.

Instead of Kaya Kinondo, which is an easy-to-access site just outside the popular beach resort of Diani Beach, I had to find another Kaya suitable for a visit. All remaining Kayas lie north of Mombasa, so that city or one of the northern coastal towns, such as Watamu, are the best bases. Kaya Kauma stood out …

While preparing for my upcoming Kenya trip, I was studying the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (part of the Coastal Forests of Kenya TWHS ). It turns out that they are looking towards a nomination , but estimate that they would need 100k-300k USD to complete it (and subsequently wondered how they would get access to so much money). The nomination dossiers have also been addressed in the WHC 2025 documents that were published this week, where a change of the format is considered for a myriad of reasons, including "to promote possibly shorter and less costly nomination dossiers".

Maybe it’s time to have a closer look at those Nomination Dossiers (I wrote about Incomplete Dossiers before).

History of the Nomination Dossier

The nomination dossier, as we now know it as an extensive glossy brochure, came into existence in 1998. After the first years of WHS, an overall need to get a grip on several aspects of the nomination process grew. In 1996, a fixed format for nominations was decided upon. That format is mostly still in use, although more specific questions are now being asked about risk preparedness, indigenous peoples, financial resources, etc.

When we look …

We’ve seen quite a lot of new members to our WH Community over the past year, and I have noticed that it can be hard to find your way around the website as a newbie. The main thing to understand is that this is a community-based website that is driven by Community Contribution . There’s no hidden, paid team behind the scenes that creates all the content. Even the technical side is supported purely voluntarily.

You can contribute to any subject where your expertise or interest lies, and any amount of time is fine. Ways in which you can participate include:

1. Create a User Profile

To become a registered member, it is as simple as creating a user profile . To be shown in Our Community list of members , you will then need to add the number of World Heritage Sites (WHS) you have visited via Update your count. You can use a nickname, but we don’t allow anonymous contributions.

With this account, you’re also eligible to rate the quality of the WHS and Tentative Sites (TWHS) you have visited, which will be reflected in the ‘quality scores’ these sites have. Also, you will …

Khinalig isn’t visited much by our community – it is too remote to feature on a first itinerary of Azerbaijan. A direct drive from Baku takes 4 hours, so it should be in our Remote Cultural WHS connection . I got there via a day tour from Baku by the Azerbaijan Travel Company (booked via the cheaper GetYourGuide). They run daily group tours with an English-speaking guide, which are surprisingly popular. It included some other short stops as well (Candycane Mountain and the Red Village (the town of the Mountain Jews, where the synagogue now has been closed and is guarded by Azeri soldiers because of Gaza tensions) ), but when you go on your own I’d recommend doing Khinalig only as it is by far the most interesting part.

The name of the village and its people isn’t pronounced “Khee-nah-leek” as I had always thought, it is something like “Geh-nuh-leg” (the g as in the guttural Arabic/Dutch g). Despite the town of Khinalig being the obvious focus of the WHS, the core zone is much larger as it also includes both their winter and summer pastures, plus the narrow way between them which is over …

Nan told me we need more icons alerting to WHS with specific Visiting Conditions . Dodging his request for ‘WHS with biosafety hazards’, I have settled for ‘ Do Not Travel : WHS in the Red Zone of travel advisory systems’. Most Western countries apply such a system, supported by a public website, that advises their citizens about travel to foreign countries. These advices include up-to-date visa, customs and health information (usually more reliable than what you’d find in private sources). Still, they are mostly known for their overall advice often given in Red, Orange, Yellow and Green. Red means “Do not Travel”.

Pros and cons of the travel advisory systems

While many experienced travellers take this advice with a pinch of salt, others are more cautious and like to be aware of the specific risks involved in travelling to a certain country. A contributing factor is that most general travel and health insurance companies use the system to determine whether your insurance is valid in the country/region.

Criticisms of these advisories in general include:

1. The application of double standards to "friendly" countries (debris from missiles flying overhead is an issue for …

My first visit to Iraq was in 2014, when I covered semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. In April 2025, I went to what in tourism is known as ‘Federal Iraq’ (although that would be a more appropriate name for the entire country, including the Kurdish governorate). As it covers the major sites of Ancient Mesopotamia, it is definitely the most interesting part and it holds 5 out of the country's 6 WHS. Herewith are some tips for travelling to Iraq as a WH Traveller.

1. Don’t expect it to be pretty

Most of it is a typical flat Arab desert landscape, littered with plastic waste. The monuments generally also lack the refinement and colour of those in neighbouring Iran. Unless roadside portraits of Shia clerics particularly enamour you, your best bet for beauty are the statues and sculptures in the National Museum in Baghdad.

2. The safety situation normalizes rapidly

Many western countries (such as Germany, Australia, USA) still raise a red flag for all travel to Iraq, although the UK , for example, has lowered its warnings for the southern areas, including Baghdad, Babylon, Najaf, and the Marshes. On the ground, it all feels calm …

The northern city of Mosul is the odd one out among the Iraqi (T)WHS. On the one hand, it is probably the one most severely damaged during the recent conflicts (though nearby Nimrud has been hit hard as well). On the other hand, it is the only one that has been subject to a full-scale international rescue mission, which has also brought in internationally accepted restoration and conservation standards.

The Old City of Mosul stands for a thus far unrepresented part of Iraqi history: that of the Turkic-Mongol invasions (though a nomination will also include its Ottoman remains). The Turkic Zengid Dynasty ruled the area of northern Iraq and Syria from Mosul from 1127–1222. The city, located along the major trade routes of the time, was known for its metal craftsmanship and miniature painting. The main monument left from this period is/was the Al-Nouri mosque and its leaning minaret.

Unfortunately, it was exactly this mosque that was blown up by ISIS during their retreat from Mosul. Their black flag had been flying from the minaret since Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed the Caliphate from here in 2014. After losing the Battle of Mosul in April 2017, they …

Our connection ‘ One Million Visitors or More ’ is popular: it links 107 WHS that are visited yearly by large numbers of tourists. Looking at the years given with the explanations, it seems that the last major update of this list was done between 2015 and 2017. It did not make much sense to update it during the COVID years (2020-2022), but now, in 2025, with data across the ‘normal’ years 2023 and 2024 available, I have gone for a full makeover.

Update process

Out of the 107 connected sites, I found adjusted numbers from the ‘After COVID’-era for 90 WHS. Unfortunately, often, there is very little precise info available. A notorious example is the Cologne Cathedral , whose official website has shown ‘6 million’ for ages. And despite the country’s love for administration, data on Indian WHS are hard to get. On the other side of the spectrum, the UK publishes nice statistics every year via the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions ( ALVA ).

In the connection descriptions, I have kept the old data as well, as it is interesting to see the trends over time (as long as they stay over …