I have added a new page in the Community Statistics section. It’s called ‘TWHS Masters’ and shows results based on Tentative Site visits as logged by our community members. I have written about TWHS before in the post “ The Value of a TWHS ”, where I argued that visiting TWHS is a waste of time with a success rate of 14% ever being promoted to WHS. But of course, you can visit them based on their own merits or use them to spice up your itinerary in a country.

Most TWHS visited

We start with the simple math of who has ‘ticked’ the highest number of TWHS . For this ranking it’s important to keep in mind that a considerable number of members have not logged their TWHS count : 5 from the Top 10 and 3 more from the Top 20.

Roman is the winner here. He clearly beat #2 with 80 sites. It’s the result of his long-term goal to revisit all countries one by one, covering all provinces and all WHS and TWHS as far as possible.

Some do significantly better on TWHS than on WHS, …

I just returned from 2 weeks in Senegal and The Gambia. The countries are fairly similar, logistically entwined and both are friendly and safe. I didn’t have high expectations, but I found enough to enjoy and the WHS of Djoudj , the Saloum Delta and the Bassari Country will appeal to anyone. Herewith are some tips for travelling to Senegambia as a WH Traveller.

Don't be put off by the scarce resources in English

There is frustrating little info in English available for an individual traveller to get around these countries. Recommended sources like the iOverlander app or the West-Africa Facebook group will only make you sad and I have deleted them already. The people active there seem only interested in road conditions and the peculiarities of border crossings, not in the countries themselves, and often display very questionable travel ethics. At least visiting the 8 WHS will give you a good overview of Senegal and The Gambia as they are nicely spread out and touch upon different topics.

No need to prebook

There is no need to book any transport or activities in advance (except for The Difficult Two, see below) – …

Like the Omo Valley , people visit the Saloum Delta mostly for A (birding) while it is inscribed for B (the tradition of shellfish gathering and the historical shell mounds). Fortunately, unlike Omo, Saloum is well-documented, with clear maps. The place to start your boat journey is the laidback town of Toubakouta, which lies conveniently close to the Gambian border if you have plans for an onward journey. The town can also be reached from Dakar or even Saint-Louis within a day.

My B&B offered a ‘menu’ of no less than 24 tours and other activities, but my eyes already stopped at #2: a late afternoon boat trip to L’île aux coquillages . So at 4.30 pm, boat guy Ibu and I stepped into the large wooden, motored pirogue and went out. The waters of the Saloum River tributaries are calm (though the Delta is tidal). It is a good area for fishing: one of the other guests had caught two large barracudas the other day, which we had for a delicious dinner in the evening!

Close to the town, you can see wooden racks standing in the water. These hold nets for the artificial …

Mauritania’s Banc d’Arguin NP is rarely visited and has only been reviewed once, about 18 years ago. However, this is the number one place for waterfowl and migratory waders among the several "bird WHS" along the West African Coast. It is “better” than Djoudj and the Saloum Delta , and only the 2025 nomination Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau comes close but still has only 50% of its numbers. We spent a full day and a night in its core zone, stretching 170km along the Atlantic Coast.

The Banc d’Arguin is so rich because it lies next to an ocean upwelling that produces nutrient-rich cooler waters. This sets a whole food chain of phytoplankton-filter feeders-fish-birds-marine mammals in motion.

We approached it from the South, driving for 2.5 hours from the capital Nouakchott. This is mostly a good paved road, where our drivers even clocked 130km/h. The surrounding landscape is rather featureless, though you will see some dromedaries roaming around. We made a first stop at Mamghar, one of the seven fishing villages inside the park. The smell of fish is predominant here: the people leave their gutted fish drying out on the fences of the corrals …

2024 was my third year of full-time travel (read here about Day 0 , Year 1 and Year 2 ). It was a busy year with mainly visits to large countries that I had been to before (China, India, Japan, Argentina, Chile). I managed to ‘complete’ the latter 3.

There were memorable trips to Sangha Trinational in the Central African Republic (photo 1 is at Dzanga Bai), Patagonia (photo 3 is at Torres del Paine) and Japan’s Ogasawara Islands (photo 2 shows the fruit of the endemic pandan tree). I was also very pleased with spotting a Saiga in Saryarka.

You can find my updated Trip Planner here , including the actual ‘results’ of 2024. With an added total of 61 (54 new + 7 from the WHC), I am still right on track.

The focus now is on reaching 1,000

Reaching 1,000 has become a subgoal as it is such a nice, round number! If all goes to plan, this will happen in late November or early December 2025.

Factors that come into play are:

• Although I somewhat started to dislike them in 2024 (as there invariably are …

It’s the year's final week – time to squeeze in another yearly overview of the reviews submitted to this website. 2024 was a rather dull year at the WHC , with 24 new sites inscribed at a poor average rating of 2.79/5. Thanks to Astraftis we had a last-minute meetup in Brussels . For Nan and myself, it was also the year that we were forced to move the website to a different hosting provider – which proved to be a blessing in the end as the performance of the website has much improved.

Community Travel

Overall, there has been a steady increase at the ‘ top ’ without any new kids on the block. Atila has joined Zoë in the over-1,000 club. We now have 4 members with more than 900 visited WHS, 5 more with over 800 WHS, and 11 more with over 700 WHS. And 39 members in total have seen over 50% of the WHS!

Memorable Reviews

We saw 581 new reviews published, 71 more than last year but still a far cry from pre-Covid levels such as 891 in 2019. 94 different people wrote them, also significantly more than last year; …

When I was in Kaziranga NP last month, I noticed that the authorities were constructing viewpoints along the main road that runs south of the park’s borders. From those, you can look into the core zone which starts maybe 50m beyond. During the season, you’ll certainly see rhinos grazing there and you’ll have the wide-open views of the landscape that is typical of the western part of the park. It may even be interesting to visit during the wet season to see where the animals take shelter (preventing the road isn’t closed due to flooding), as the effects of the water level fluctuations are a significant part of Kaziranga’s OUV. This insight prompted me to have a look at the value of Drive-by visits.

The ”problem” with Drive-by visits

The main issue with Drive-bys is that you generally do not enter the core zone of a WHS. I am not obsessed with this as seeing the OUV always trumps it for me. We have WHS that are fully closed and then we all ‘tick’ seeing the OUV from the buffer zone or as close as you can get.

Another issue is that while ‘driving …

So I have just returned from my best India trip ever! I stayed energetic til the end and could have easily extended it by a week or so if the visa had allowed me to. I managed to visit 15 new WHS; I had already visited 24 across my 4 previous trips so I am missing just 4 now to complete India. The itinerary can be found here . Bear in mind with the tips below that I visited mostly state-level places of interest, and not the more foreign-touristy parts such as the Golden Triangle (where you'll definitely encounter more touts).

1. Fly!

43 WHS, 28 States – where to start? Even after 4 previous trips I still had (and have) so much of India to cover. I suggest keeping it to one state at a time for a “normal” traveller on a 2-3 week trip. For a WH Traveller who wants to raise his/her score, it’s best to combine several clusters. I made good use of the domestic flight network of IndiGo, which connects most state capitals and other major hubs. For a mere 75 EUR or so you’ll find yourself in the middle …

The Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Bodh Gaya is easily reached nowadays in about 2 hours from Patna via a 4-lane highway that bypasses the city of Gaya. The town of Bodh Gaya is essentially a slum, with desperately poor living conditions and full of people whose main goal in life is to get the most out of the Buddhist pilgrims. India shows itself here at its worst: noisy rickshaws, begging children, severely deformed people hoping for compassion, con artists of all kinds, and dirty children made to perform circus acts by their mothers. They all ply the main street leading up to the temple.

The entrance policy confused me when I tried to find out about it online beforehand, but despite the tiresome stroll through town, it’s actually not chaotic at all. Entrance is free, except when you want to take pictures; then a 100rs fee is required, payable at the " Camera Ticket Counter ". Phones are not allowed in, but it seems that when you buy a camera ticket this is waived as well (I did not try).

First going through a new gate with the reassuring label "World Heritage Site" overhead, you …

Kaziranga is the site I looked forward to the most on this India trip, and it certainly did not disappoint. I splurged on staying for 2 nights in the upmarket Diphlu River Lodge (335 EUR p/n all-in). They offer safari packages similar to the lodges in African national parks, including all meals and activities. Its location turned out to be a bit noisy (it lies close to the main road Jorhat-Guwahati) and the somewhat stiffish service didn’t quite reach the African Safari Lodge level, where understated elegance and convivial atmosphere often appear effortless. On the plus side: I had my private car and guide who took me on generously long (4-5 hour) game drives and steered away from the crowds. The food and the room were excellent as well.

The park is only open from November to April, as the rest of the year the area suffers from the effects of serious flooding covering up to 80% of its surface. Markings on park buildings show how high the water reached in certain years. Both man and animal flee to higher-lying areas such as man-made “islands” called chapories and the main road. This also means that …