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 at a few examples of nomination …

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 be able to vote …

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 …

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 Iraq and Iran, but apparently not for Jordan, …

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 and safe and the people are …

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 blew it up with …

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 one million visitors).

Findings

When …

One of the aspects that make Counting WHS more difficult than Counting Countries or Counting Regions is that the List is infinite and it will require you to backtrack to specific areas, whereas for the other lists, one visit suffices. Surely, many WH Travellers will need to retrace their steps for Umm Al-Jimal : only 28 of us made it to this recent WHS, while nearby Jerash has been seen by 121 and Quseir Amra by 174. On my 2012 Jordan trip, I covered those two as well and even Azrak Castle TWHS, but I did not make it to Umm Al-Jimal: it seemed too nondescript for a detour, as are Pella and Gadara , which also lie in the same region north of Amman.

Despite its relative obscurity, Umm Al-Jimāl has been praised as “an archaeologist’s dream”. It’s not hard to take pictures here that would make it look like a Roman-Byzantine site, and the even earlier Nabataeans passed here too, but 90% of the site consists of vernacular architecture based on locally available and finely cut basalt stones. The site museum glorifies the “indigenous people [ probably Arab nomads who settled down ].. who …

Sometimes, while working on the website or prepping for an upcoming trip, I stumble upon an old Connection that hasn’t seen a lot of updates. Often, it’s so old that I hardly remember what it is about. Only Jurre may still know about its existence! While reading up on Göbekli Tepe , I wondered why we don’t have a connection for (bas-)reliefs since they are fairly common occurrences all across the world. It turned out that we are hiding them in a connection called " Rock Cut Art ".

Definition issues

I found an e-mail from Solivagant dating back to 2009, where he highlighted that a clear differentiation was needed between the various cultural connections related to the use of “Rock”. We have:

• Monumental Monoliths : heavy pieces of rock, cut and detached from the living rock (including the obelisks of Aksum and Stonehenge ).
• Cave Temples/Churches : built into natural caves with possible outside features and carving (such as those in Cappadocia ).
• Rock Cut Architecture : structures carved in situ into “living rock”, not primarily based on natural caves ( Petra , Ajanta , Ellora , etc).
• Petroglyphs : “line” drawings, patterns, or characters scratched, pecked, or etched …

I have been thinking lately about “Windows of Opportunity”, and whether they truly exist in a travel planning context. Windows of Opportunity are circumstances that suddenly present themselves and that may not happen again – so you need to react promptly to take advantage. This could be because an armed conflict ends or travel bans get lifted. For example: after the recent regime change in Syria, the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria have become accessible for the first time in about 14 years (trips to Serjella and Al-Bara are advertised). And a first international group visited North Korea in February 2025 after 5 years of Covid-closure.

I wonder however what these opportunities across a lifetime of WH Travel really mean. Should you go to Syria now in 2025 and put yourself on the waitlist for North Korea?

Windows of countries and sites

With the recent reopening of North Korea, every country is theoretically visitable again (though getting a tourist visa to Sudan or Niger may be tough). (Un)fortunately, as WH Travellers we need to get much deeper into a country than a border or a capital, so certainly not every WHS is visitable at …