For my recent 10-week trip to Mexico and Central America, I had decided to travel ultra-light, replacing my regular 30-liter backpack with a 20 liter one. It is a Deuter Speedlite 20L Backpack that has handy elastic additional pockets. Moving to a warm climate helped in this decision, although Mexico-City isn’t that warm in January (needed the sweater and the raincoat a few times). I had already tried this configuration out on shorter trips in Europe a few times. This travel style sparked a discussion about stinky clothes in our WhatsApp group, so I don't want to keep it away from a bigger audience!

Some of the packing rules I applied

• Do not bring anything “Just in case”. If you lose something, replace it locally. This strategy may not work in Chad or the DRC, but will in most places and certainly in Mexico and Central America.
• Only bring clothes that you really like wearing - because you’ll have to wear them over and over again! And verify whether they will dry quickly enough.
• If there is something that you only need to use once during the trip, then rent it or buy one locally …

This site hasn’t been reviewed for 13 years, so I think Quiriguá deserves to be put into the spotlights. With this visit, I also completed the list of 9 WHS connected to Mayan culture . And every time you think: “I’ve seen so many Maya sites already, what can this one possibly add?” But they all have different qualities. Quiriguá has the best-preserved sculptures.

The Quiriguá archaeological park has suffered severe hurricane damage from Eta and Iota in 2020 and has only reopened in June 2021. They had to remove 12 swimming pools full of mud and water, which left certain areas flooded up to 1.8m .

During my visit in February 2022, nothing of that damage was visible anymore and the site looked very well cared for. At the entrance, you get a site-specific ticket and a booklet in English (both rare in Mexico or Central America). Signage is in both Spanish and English. There is a (new?) boardwalk that takes you along the monuments, so you don’t have to walk on the grass. It had been raining for 2 hours before my visit, and the ground had turned soggy again.

The site …

I visited the lovely site of Joya de Ceren in February 2022, not long after its full reopening. El Salvador's one and only WHS had been closed for a full makeover and subsequent Covid measures for most of the time since late 2019. The site from a visitor’s perspective is now in a very good state. Striking is the French support that has gone into the restoration ( they apparently paid 70% of the bill of 1.3 million US dollars). The museum has been modernized, good information panels have been placed (in Spanish, English, and of course in French), the site has been made accessible for the blind and the protective shelters have been made higher/larger so that you have a better view of the ruins.

I covered the 40 kilometers between San Salvador and Joya de Ceren in a genuine chicken bus: bus 108 that leaves from Terminal de Occidente. The ride cost only 0.50 US dollars and took 1.5 hours. The bus stops in front of the entrance of the archaeological site, just after crossing a large orange bridge. On the way back I had a “better” bus, with actual seats instead of benches …

Northern Mexico is a whole different world than the Mexican heartland around Mexico City: more like the USA, with wide-open spaces and unspoiled nature. The states of Chihuahua, Sonora, Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Baja California Sur even have their own time zone, one hour behind most of the rest of Mexico. There are 5 WHS here, all very much worth visiting but rarely covered on this website. Please find below my Top Tips for Travelling to Northern Mexico as a WH Traveller.

1. It isn’t easy to find the optimal route

Beforehand, I broke my head at the optimal itinerary for the North. I ended up cutting it into 3 segments and flying between them (Chihuahua, Hermosillo, and La Paz (Baja California)). However, it is possible to do them in one go by public transport: Chihuahua – Casas Grandes (for Paquimé WHS) – Nogales – Puerto Penasco (for El Pinacate WHS, needs a tour, and the Gulf of California too) - Mexicali – San Ignacio (for El Vizcaino and Sierra de San Francisco , both need a tour) – Loreto (for the Gulf of California, needs a tour) – La Paz. A longer alternative is to …

The Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco have hardly been reviewed on this website so far, so let’s start with the basics. The included area is large (it’s even in the Top 20 of largest cultural WHS ) and stretches out north of Mexico’s Highway #1 in Baja California Sur between San Ignacio and El Porvenir. It holds several hundred small groups of rock paintings and rock carvings. The area is remote and difficult to access: for a day trip you have the choice between Ratón (via San Francisco de la Sierra: needs 4WD, an only short climb up a staircase, small group of paintings) and Palmarito (via Santa Martha: car with good clearance needed, requires a 1.5-hour hike, rock face with abundant paintings). If you go by yourself, you need to report to the INAH office in San Ignacio beforehand to pay the entrance fee and they will let the local caretaker know that you’re coming and he will lead you to the site of the rock art. Multi-day trips that are offered by specialized outfitters use mules to trek to the even more isolated cave paintings, which are also said to be the best.

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I visited the Grey whales at San Ignacio Lagoon, one of the two locations that make up the Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino . The B&B where I was staying (Ignacio Springs) booked the whale tour for me – beforehand I thought that you had to book as early as possible, but the lady just phoned in the night before. As always with sea-based tours: the weather & wind can cause cancellations, so it’s best to allow for a couple of days in the area (also to tick off the nearby Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco WHS, with which it even shared the initial nomination until they were wisely split up by World Heritage Bureau).

From the town of San Ignacio, which lies on Highway 1, it’s another 1-1.5 hour drive to get to the actual lagoon. The first 45km is on an easy, paved road, the last 15 on a relatively bumpy unpaved one. There’s nothing here but a few basic camps and some mudflats. The operator I used was Antonio’s Ecotours, which asks 60 USD per person for the tour. The boats can hold up to 12 people, but on mine …

EPGDABR , short for “El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar National Biosphere Reserve”, is another rarely visited WHS in the far North of Mexico. After contemplating a lot of options on how to get there ( Fly to Mexicali and rent a car? Take a bus the loooong way west from Chihuahua? ), I stumbled upon a 2-day / 1-night camping tour out of the Sonoran state capital of Hermosillo. It ticked all my boxes as it would cover both the sand dunes (Gran Desierto) and the volcanic landscape (El Pinacate), provide transport & lodging, and it was cheap and convenient as well. This WHS is complicated in many ways, so brace yourself for a long review.

The first question that needs to be answered is “What is it exactly about?”. The landscape is a mix of volcanic craters, cactuses, high sand dunes, and starry nights, all in the Sonoran Desert. As the long name already suggests, it covers actually two adjacent areas with different values. I can see that for management purposes they have been linked, but it does feel like visiting two different sites. El Pinacate I would describe as “Iceland with cactuses”, while the …

I didn’t want to come back from a visit to the Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque with the same story and the same photos as all reviewers before me. So, after digging through the nomination file and looking at the official map, it became clear to me that the two endpoints of the hydraulic system, the towns of Otumba and Zempoala, also are part of the core zone. And luckily there are buses all day long from Mexico City to Otumba. They are run by the same company that goes to Teotihuacan from Area 7 at Terminal Norte bus station. They have a cute map on their website which suggests that you can reach Zempoala with them as well.

After a drive of about 1.5 hours, the bus dropped me at the town entrance and I walked on to the central square. The first (and maybe only) eye-catcher in Otumba is the Church and Convent of the Immaculate Conception, also built under the auspices of Padre Tembleque. The church seems much too big for the town. It has a spacious plaza in front: as in many places in early colonial Mexico, services for the indigenous people were …

While travelling in Mexico and reading other people’s reviews of Turkey, I was thinking that these 2 countries must be among the best WHS travel has to offer. But what about China? It has a huge list already, with many very fine sites. For an answer, I decided to query the data that we have gathered from the ratings of WHS by community members. Which countries are overall best for WHS?

Top Lists

I did a few selections that seemed appropriate to answer the question. You can do your own by looking at the Country Ranking page.

Overall the best countries, with an average score of 4 or higher, are:

1. Zambia - 4.8
2. Afghanistan - 4.7
3. DRC/Holy See - 4.6
4. Palau/Chad - 4.5
5. Haiti - 4.4
6. New Zealand - 4.3
7. Yemen/Sudan - 4.2
8. Guatemala/Honduras/Namibia - 4.1
9. Ireland/Libya/Solomon Islands/Tanzania - 4.0

Looking only at the countries with 5 WHS or more, the ranking is:

1. DRC - 4.6
2. Libya/Tanzania - 4.0
3. Egypt/Zimbabwe - 3.9
4. Algeria/Argentina/Syria/Turkey/Uzbekistan - 3.8
5. Australia/Peru/USA - 3.7

And among the large countries, with …

Paquimé , located over 1,700 km north of Mexico City, is a site that is often overlooked. It doesn’t have the great monuments that other pre-Columbian Mexican sites are known for. It’s a niche site for archaeologists, exemplifying architectural and trading links between the area of the Classic Pueblo sites (now located in the Southwest USA) and Mesoamerica. Research has never been intensive, as archaeologists traditionally focus on either one of these worlds. But I was pleasantly surprised by its size and good condition. For me, it closed a circle after having already seen the other Puebloan sites of Mesa Verde , Taos , and Chaco . A visit also brings a lot of insight into the specific history of this region, always so far away from everything.

After walking past the still closed entrance barrier at the opening hour of 10 a.m., I was welcomed in by the guard and his German shepherd dog (I kept a safe distance, much more than 1.5m!) and sent on my way to walk the circuit that is signposted at the site. The first structure one encounters here is the ball court – it looks like a simpler …