Hollókő is a traditional agricultural settlement of the North Hungarian Palóc community. The village consists of whitewashed half-timbered houses, which originated in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was completely rebuilt after a fire in 1909. The town was the first stop on my long weekend to Eastern Hungary, where I aimed to tick off 3 suspiciously low-ranked WHS.

I had some difficulty getting there. It should only be an hour's drive from Budapest airport, but there were lots of impediments:

• my flight already arrived with a delay of 10 minutes,
• the rental car parking space had moved to a far away place beyond the Ibis hotel,
• I lost my ticket to exit the parking so I had to go back to the Hertz counter for a new one,
• there was no satnav in the rental car, so I had to use my phone…. for which I forgot to bring the charger!
• using GPS for navigation the phone battery doesn't last much longer than a few hours, so I was already thinking of buying an old-fashioned map at a gas station; luckily I passed a large shopping mall where …

The Azeri capital of Baku will happily host (and fund) everything at the moment, recent examples include the European Games and the final of the 2018-19 UEFA Europa League. So it was no surprise that it stepped forward as the location of the WHC Session of 2019. The session in general went in a more civilized atmosphere than in the years before: negative recommendations lead to withdrawals, deferrals were accepted. But still there appears to be a gap between the Advisory Bodies (ICOMOS mostly) and the WHC. Most excitement came from Hungary, which withdrew 1 location of its lot within the Danube Limes at the last minute - blocking the whole nomination which was headed for inscription.

29 new sites were selected, with a number of long-deserving ones. Find below some aspects that warrant a closer look.

1. Missing WHS

From the Missing List that we compiled in 2014, a further 5 sites have now been inscribed as a WHS: Bagan (our number 1!), the Plain of Jars , the Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings , Vatnajökull National Park and Babylon .

2. Threatened by termite nests

We have seen tsunami’s, dams, war, drought and rats threatening the healthy existence of …

The Krzemionki Prehistoric Striped Flint Mining Region has been nominated by Poland to be included in the List this year. ICOMOS in its evaluation has asked for a Referral, mostly because of the need for adequate protection of all its components and the implementation of the management plan. Outstanding Universal Value has been proven though, also compared to the already inscribed Flint Mines of Spiennes . So an inscription seems imminent, be it this year or the next. On my recent Pentecost trip to Eastern Poland I made a small detour between Warsaw and Zamosc to check out what Krzemionki is all about.

"Krzemionki" is the name of a former village, but not the name of the current location. The main site lies between the villages of Sudół en Magonie, 8km northeast of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. I drove there in 2.5 hours from Warsaw airport. Nowadays it is a wooded area, with some administration buildings and a grand parking. This Saturday afternoon though there were only a few cars. When I bought my entrance ticket (18 zloty / 4.20 EUR), an English-speaking colleague was quickly called for help by the cashier lady. He told me that a …

After so many unsatisfying visits described by previous reviewers, I tried a different approach at covering Bialowieza Forest . I pre-booked a private tour into the Strict Reserve on the Polish side, a part that can only be visited with a licensed guide. This is also the core area that was originally inscribed in 1979 (the WHS has been extended several times since). I went with Arek Szymura of Pygmy Owl Nature Tours ; I knew he was serious when he suggested to meet up at 4am! Just in time before sunrise, it was light already and a pleasant 15 degrees Celsius.

So at 5 minutes to 4 I stood waiting in front of Bialowieza’s orthodox church. This lies next to the Palace Park, which I had visited the day before. Our tour started with a quick crossing of that park (with a short stop for observing a tawny owl) and exiting it again at the north-western corner. Between the park and the strict reserve is a stretch of some 500m of meadows, they were very pretty in the early morning light with a bit of haze. We encountered a small group of people with spotting …

Zamość , located in the Far East of Poland near the border with Ukraine, was one of the two WHS goals of my recent Pentecost trip. This year especially I am trying very hard to cover isolated sites like these in my quest to visit all European WHS. In January 2017 I calculated that I had 98 to do - now, in June 2019, I have only 24 to go (after excluding Turkey, Russia and Israel which are a bit too far and complex for weekend trips). I might be confronted however with an additional 4 to 9 after the 2019 WHC meeting that takes place early July.

I arrived in Zamość on Saturday around dinner time after a long day of driving and had looked forward to eating a meal at the famous Rynek square. But, lo and behold, a full stage had been set up there and a classical concert was about to start. Everyone who had managed to secure a spot at one of the terraces obviously stayed put to listen in.

Some time ago in our Whatsapp group we discussed what spoils a WHS visit (or a photo thereof): a …

Victoria Falls is an easy add-on to a Botswana trip because of its proximity to Kasane, the starting-point or endpoint of most safari tours through the country. From Kasane I was swiftly delivered in about an hour to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe. I saw the smoke and heard the thunder already the day before I visited the Falls itself – at the Ilalla Lodge where I was staying there is a constant noise as if there was an airport nearby. But it is that huge waterfall making itself heard 24x7.

My 'official' visit to the Falls started on the Zimbabwean side. I walked there in less than 10 minutes, that is how close they are to the town of Victoria Falls. Here you walk down a path with 19 vantage points. You hike for a bit, then you make a small detour to a lookout point and then you continue on the original path. Due to the large amount of water falling down and the spray that creates, it was especially hard to see anything in the central part of the Falls. The best photos can be taken from the side, at viewpoint #2 …

The TWHS registered as Chobe Linyanti System comprises the Chobe National Park and adjacent private wildlife reserves such as Selinda and Linyanti. Chobe NP itself actually already consists of 4 different zones, of which I visited Savuti and Chobe Riverfront (aka Serondela). Both were on the itinerary of my 6 night mobile camping safari, so I stayed in private camp areas inside the parks.

Chobe NP ranked 13th in the latest poll of best African safari parks and destinations : before Kruger and Etosha, but behind Serengeti, Mana Pools and South Luangwa (and its Botswana neighbours Okavango and Moremi). It is characterized as “Boat and classic safari, Big 5 present (rhino very rare), abundant elephants”.

Our first 2 nights were spent in Savuti. Savuti is named after the Savuti Marsh, a large former inland lake whose water supply is fed erratically by the Savuti Channel. It last overflowed in 2012 and in one of the artificial waterholes around the park you can see a breathing reminder of that: one hippo could not get away in time before it all dried up again, and he now spends his time alone in a little pool. A sad …

The Okavango Delta was the 1000st WHS on the List, it “… has long been considered one of the biggest gaps on the World Heritage list” and was deliberately planned to gain this milestone marker at the 2014 WHC. Almost the same amount of coordination was done by me in my 2019 travel planning to let this magnificent and truly unique site be my 700th visited WHS. I stayed there for 4 nights: 2 in a lodge near Chief’s Island and 2 nights camping in Moremi Game Reserve.

My first acquaintance however with the Delta was on the way back per helicopter from the Tsodilo hills. We flew south-eastward along the water channels. This central area of the Okavango turned out to be pretty dry as well. What you see from the air is a patchwork of coloured ‘islands’ among dried up land and trails made by animals. Animal sightings included pools full of hippo’s, slowly moving elephant trains and crocodiles sunbathing on beaches.

On the next day I was transported by one of these lovely bush planes to Oddballs’ Enclave on Chief’s Island. Oddball’s Enclave is a more recent (and even more expensive) offspring …

Tsodilo currently ranks 953rd out of 1092 on our list of most visited WHS . That low position has at least 2 reasons: it isn’t a well-known site among the general travel audience and it lies somewhat out of the way from Botswana’s main tourist zone between Maun and Kasane. Those difficult logistics almost beat me as well: the only logical route is when you’re coming from Namibia (the Caprivi Strip) with a rental car like Svein & Randi did last month - then you’ll pass it. However, I had no car and was staying in Maun. The company that I booked my safari with proposed to fly me north and put me in a “fishing lodge” for 2 nights – I could take a day tour from there. But I found a tantalizing alternative: a half-day tour by helicopter from Maun to Tsodilo!!

So on a Saturday morning I reported at Maun airport at 6.30 am for my flight up there. They fly with small helicopters, there’s only room for the pilot and 3 guests. It takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to the Tsodilo Hills. The pilot had to yell …

I love travelling, I like reading about travel, I have been actively contributing to travel websites in both the Dutch and English language for over 20 years. But I sincerely hate 95% of all travelblogs! And I do so even more when their owners try to influence this website.

The birth of a new genre among websites could have been so beneficial to travellers, to learn from each other’s experiences on the road. And you need no technical knowledge to create a perfectly acceptable blog. But this trend has quickly turned into something dominated by vanity, commercialism and copycat behaviour.

In explaining what it is that exactly annoys me so much, I will try to debunk 3 rationalizations often given by those travel bloggers for their behaviour:

“Even though I may receive compensation for posts or advertisements, I will always give my honest opinions”

At the moment you start writing about something that was offered to you for free by a commercial company, you’re done. Sometimes it’s just obnoxious – in the case of a simple link …