Sambor Prei Kuk means "Many Temples in the Forest". And that precisely is what it is!

I spent 1.5 hours at the site, accompanied by a local guide, her dog, and my tuk-tuk driver from Kampong Thom who before had never been beyond the parking lot. The guides work for the area’s Community-Based Tourism organization, which also offers homestays and other activities (similar to those available at Banteay Chhmar ). I found it worth it to hire a guide this time: the site is not really self-explaining and there are just a few boards with information. I also enjoyed hearing her take on tourism in this region and life in general in Cambodia’s countryside. The cost is 10 USD, in addition to the 10 USD entrance fee.

All temples here are Hindu and were specifically built for the worship of Shiva. The most common feature is the presence of the yoni . Unfortunately, a lot of the original interior statues have been looted or brought to museums in Phnom Penh and France.

The temples show some unique characteristics, as already pointed out by earlier reviewers. The octagonal shape of several of them for …

Recently I bought a book called “ Antarctica. A history in 100 objects. ” I’d recommend it as a gift to every armchair traveller, especially when he or she doesn’t know much already about the subject. Get the hardcover version, it’s not expensive. It got me thinking about Antarctica and possible WHS. We’ve touched upon this subject before at the Forum on several occasions, such as the Top Missing 2008 , Top 50 Missing 2020 , and Jonas Bergmann’s Dream List .

Why are there no Antarctic World Heritage Sites yet?

This is because of the combined effects of two international treaties. According to UNESCO's World Heritage Convention , sites can only be brought forward by a country and should be on its territory . This has been determined in Article 3 and was further clarified with the Antarctica example in this decision from 1977 . Although 7 countries claim portions of Antarctica as theirs (sometimes overlapping), these claims are not recognized by other countries outside of these 7. Also, a large part of Antarctica is unclaimed. All involved parties have since 1959 agreed to govern the continent as a scientific preserve by the Antarctic Treaty System .

What constitutes …

7 out of the current 9 Moroccan World Heritage Sites have been rated with 3 stars or more by our community. They have brought Morocco a good overall country rating of 3.44. The only exceptions are Tétouan (almost there at 2.92), and Mazagan (2.63). The Portuguese City of Mazagan however turned out the biggest positive surprise of my short Moroccan coastal trip in January 2023.

Just looking at the site’s intrinsic qualities and OUV, I believe a low rating of Mazagan is not fair. Yes, I understand it is small and takes an hour at most to explore. But:

1. It is really old. It dates from the very early stages of the explorations of the Portuguese outside Europe (1514). Among the many Portuguese colonial forts around the world, this one is the second oldest that is still intact. The only older one is Elmina Castle in Ghana (part of the Gold Coast Forts WHS ).
2. It has barely changed since. Elmina was heavily used by the Dutch and British in the 17th-19th centuries, while Mazagan was abandoned after the Portuguese left in 1769. The fortress town, therefore, has kept its original …

“ Invention of sweets ” already is an older connection, it has id number 420 out of 1525. Lately, a few additional suggestions for connected sites were made on the Forum, but at first, I found them hard to fit in. It became a good excuse for a clean-up of the connection!

Limits of the connection

One of the issues with the original connection was that even the title was misleading. “Sweets” are what the Americans call Candy (the people Down Under even call them Lollies apparently!). But we have included sweet pastries as well. So I’ve now changed the title of the connection to “Invention of sweets and pastries”. Just anything sweet to snack on while you are visiting a WHS.

The connection did not have an introduction text, and therefore no criteria to measure sites against. I have now added:

1. They must be sweets (candy), sweet pastries or sweet desserts

2. They are believed to have originated in a specific place within the core zone of WHS

3. They are widely available elsewhere as well, not only at their place of origin

For 'rule' number 2, “believed …

There’s a feature on the home page that lists (T)WHS that are making the news. I once started it to capture events such as “The Taj Mahal is on fire” and “More Nasca lines discovered”. So far, 3316 news items have been logged since 2006. Let’s have a closer look at them, and how we can improve this section in the future.

The Process

Updating the news section is one of the daily chores I do for the website. At fixed times in the morning and in the evening I receive Google Alerts in my e-mail box based upon keywords such as “World Heritage” and “heritage site”. Community members also point me to news via whatsapp or e-mail. And there is an active forum topic where the news gets posted too.

I read through them all and make a selection. Some I omit because they are better placed elsewhere: for example, if a TWHS is rumoured to aim for an inscription in 2024, I will post it in the 2024 WHC forum topic. Also, I try to filter out the ‘old news’, ‘fake news’, and ‘not newsworthy’ ones. More on that later under ‘Pitfalls’.

At the end of last year, I spent 5 weeks travelling around Brazil focusing on the Northern states. I had been to the South in 2004 and had already covered 10 WHS there. Now, I ended with 22 of Brazil’s current 24 WHS seen – to do it all in one go would easily take 8-10 weeks! Herewith are some tips for travelling to Northern Brazil as a WH Traveller.

1. Get used to taking lots of domestic flights

There's no road to Tefe. Manaus to Belem is 3000 km and takes days by boat. Sao Luis is as isolated as it comes. So there's no other transport option than to fly between the hubs of the north. Fortunately, domestic air travel is excellently organized in Brazil. I used Azul mostly: they have the best coverage of the north, usually fly with very modern planes (with free wifi and live TV), and are easy to book online or via the fine app. Using so many flights has two side effects: it is costly (I spent 80-110 EUR per flight, but it can be 200-300 EUR when booking later), and: it is very relaxed. I was never tired after a 'travel …

2022 was my first year without a paid job or any other obligations, and I dedicated it fully to WH travel. I managed to visit 58 new WHS, more than I had anticipated in my Trip Plan and without the free bonus WHS from a WHC meeting. Overall, I travelled more and cheaper than budgeted. After half a year I knew I had enough money left for 2022 to pick up the expensive destinations Skellig Michael and Chad.

For the coming years, due to advantageous tax measures and rising interest rates, I also can raise my yearly travel budget a bit. So the date of reaching the goal of 1100 visited WHS has now been adjusted to 2028 instead of 2030! You can find my updated Trip Planner here, including the actual ‘results’ of 2022.

And I learned a lot:

Mentally

1. You start to overthink things. At the start of the year my head was full of general travel worries (Will there be a bus? Where do I need to buy tickets and when? Etc.). So many choices to make, always trying to reach the optimum. You just have more time and room in your head to think I …

Some people have travelled around madly this year. And more and more people seem to travel (semi-)permanently nowadays. Countries like Syria and Yemen have come on the travel radar again, and people are stumbling over each other to book trips to Saudi Arabia. So 2022 was a fruitful year for new reviews – although I’d like to see some more added from Saudi (hint! hint!).

Community Travel

The magical number of 1,000 visited WHS has not been reached yet by anyone, probably because Zoë put on the brakes mid-year. Looking at the rankings on other websites such as Nomadmania or MostTravelledPeople , with a number in the 800’s you’ll easily be in the Top 10 overall.

In our own Top 10, we see that Luis Filipe Gaspar is a new entry at spot #8 and that Roman Bruehwiler is approaching as well. With more full-time/professional travellers entering the WH arena (as more people have managed to complete their first goal already, visiting all 193 countries), we may see the numbers rise quickly. But I wonder how they approach their visits – ‘ticking’ WHS in my opinion is not a geographical game like counting countries, but requires knowledge …

Fernando de Noronha is one of the few islands in the South Atlantic – other notable ones are Gough Island , Tristan da Cunha, and St. Helena . That apparently makes it special enough to be considered a TCC ‘country’ and have its own Nomadmania region (though it is part of the state of Pernambuco), and about 70% of it is a WHS as well. Whether it is as good as Northern Atlantic ones such as the Azores, Cabo Verde, or even the Canary Islands, is questionable. It needed to team up with the more outstanding, more scenic, but inaccessible Rocas Atoll, 150 km away, to reach WH status. They are jointly known as the ‘ Brazilian Atlantic Islands ’.

I stayed on Fernando de Noronha for 3 nights and allotted a day to its marine features and two to its land surface. On the first afternoon, I walked from the town of Remedios to the northern tip of the island . A first beach, the remains of two Portuguese fortresses and offshore volcanic islands can be seen. At one of those islands, I spotted my first noteworthy bird: the masked booby.

The next morning …

No community member so far has succeeded in ‘completing’ Brazil. This is surprising, as its list does not feature any particularly hard-to-reach sites. The main ‘issue’ is that there are many of them and all spread out across this vast country: it takes a lot of stamina and certainly cannot be done in one trip. The state capital of Maranhão, São Luis , is one often lacking. It lies isolated in the far north, but with the upcoming nomination of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park some 250km away it surely will start to attract more people.

The town shows its WH status proudly. There are already signs with the familiar logo and the subtitle ‘City of Tiles’ upon entering the city border. In the historical city center they have maps indicating the sights and the delimitations of the core zone. The maps show no less than 73 monuments and 29 squares, and that turned out not to be an exaggeration.

I had put together my own City Walk and that brought me to the following places:

The Upper town (on the site of the original French fort) holds all the important public buildings, including the …