There are some WHS on the List where it is hard to imagine what they are about and what they look like before you visit it. For me that always has been the case with “ Makli, Thatta ”. What’s Makli and what’s Thatta? Well, Makli means “little Mekkah” and is the name of the site, while Thatta is the name of the city it belongs to. The site is usually described as a necropolis, but I believe it is not really about the number of burials. It stands out for its set of monumental tombs and mausolea created in different styles by local dignitaries, who wanted to be buried near the shrine for the Sufi scholar Shaikh Jamali.

Makli was already inscribed in 1981, which seems a little early as although it is a nice site to visit it can hardly be seen as globally influential in any way; it’s more the eclectic result of a local building tradition. There is little info to go on why exactly it was made a WHS. It went through a re-focus stage post-inscription (including a name change) as described here , as the earliest incarnation seemed to suggest …

I just spent 8 days in Saudi Arabia. It hadn’t been high on my travel wish list, but it presented itself as a convenient stop-over on my way to Pakistan. You can find my itinerary here . I am glad that I did it, despite the pitfalls described below: Saudi Arabia never has been as open before as it is now. Maybe it’s better to go in 5 years when they have ‘finished’, but who knows which way the political winds will blow then? Herewith are some tips for travelling to Saudi Arabia as a WH Traveller.

1. They don’t adhere to the WHS Commandments

Saudi must be among the worst followers of the WHS Visitor Commandments – you’ll hardly find anything that could pass for a plaque, most sites are first inscribed and only afterward made ready to receive tourists, there can be unannounced closures when bigwigs show up and they don’t like you looking around on your own at archeological sites. There usually is some on-site explanation available in Arabic and English, but it is generally of little depth.

They seem to have created a few Commandments of their own though, such …

Nabatean Hegra may be its main tourist attraction nowadays, but Saudi Arabia’s Unique Selling Point is being the custodian of the two holy sites of Islam: Mecca and Medina. No less than four TWHS are directly related to the pilgrimages to these sites. There are three Hajj Road serial transnational sites, of which the Darb Zubaydah seems to be prepared at the moment as a joint nomination between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. And there’s also the Hejaz Railway , which despite the “transport” theme also is closely associated with the Islamic pilgrimage route. The Islamic pilgrimage routes probably are the closest the Saudis will get to putting forward its holy sites as WHS (Mecca’s Kaaba is #9 of our Missing List ).

My first encounter with this subject was at the National Museum of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh. At the moment they are hosting a special exhibition called ‘Hijrah’. It tells the story of how the Prophet Mohammed fled from Mecca to Medina to avoid persecution. Although this seems like a difficult and intangible theme, they found clever solutions to bring the message across also to non-Muslim visitors. Large video screens show his journey day by …

At first, I thought it was only me, noticing how many WHS I have visited using a bicycle as my main means of transport, as I practically grew up on a bicycle in the Netherlands. But then I saw other community members doing it too – even Hubert from mountainous Austria! And long-distance cyclist Michael Ayers has proven that you can cycle almost anywhere. There are just so many WHS where a bicycle is the right kind of transport.

What advantages does a bicycle have?

If you have to choose between walking and cycling, the advantage of a bicycle is that it takes you just that bit further. It’s ideal for distances between 15 and 40km and perfect for exploring serial sites or cultural landscapes that are spread out.

Choosing between driving and cycling, a bicycle will give you of course that breath of fresh air. But also more of a ‘feel’ for a certain area (cultural landscapes again come to mind), as you move through it more slowly. You can also take smaller paths and don’t need to worry about parking. And it’s cheaper to rent a bike than a car.

Which …

Earlier this year I started rewriting the site intro texts to make them more consistent and appealing. The idea was to turn them into an Executive Summary of the WHS: what is it, why was it inscribed and what has the community to say about it (as written down in the reviews). It proved to be a huge amount of work, on average one WHS took me 15 minutes. I now have 95% completed and hope to finish the project before I embark on my next trip later this week.

During the process, I also made hundreds of small changes to the individual site pages which have improved their overall quality. Think of standardizing the size of the main photo, removing blank lines, updating specific visitor requirements (free entrances, guided tours only, etc), small name changes, and adding overlooked locations. And I took note of some remarkable, unintentional findings which are listed below.

I love one-sentence quotes that define a site : As I was aiming to summarize, I was glad to find single sentences within reviews that cover the site beautifully. Like “Falun gives you a real sense of how heavy industry can …

So I have the honour to first review this site after inscription! Fortunately, it wasn’t as gloomy as I expected it - instead of the celebratory “Wir sind Welterbe” banners common in Germany, the components of this WHS displayed happy purple signs stating “Jetzt UNESCO Welterbe - Mazal-Tov!”. Even the infamous Stone House (component #3), which was previously hard to recognize, now stands out in its street.

I don’t know whether Erfurt normally sees a lot of tourists, but on the Thursday in late October when I visited many tour groups were led through its historic center; mostly German, some Asian. I could overhear their guides talking about the newly gained World Heritage Status. I also happily explored its streets with its eclectic architecture, visited the Cathedral, the St Severus' Church, and the Citadel, and ate a hearty lunch. But after that, I couldn’t postpone the Jewish Heritage sites anymore.

The Old Synagogue seems to have gotten more accustomed to receiving visitors - you get a proper ticket plus an audio guide or a booklet on loan that explains the site and Erfurt’s Jewish history. One enters via a small courtyard and then has three …

Minor Boundary Modifications are a ‘thing’: over the past 18 years or so (I see them first appearing in 2005), over 120 of these modifications have been approved. They take up a lot of time from the State Parties and ICOMOS/IUCN in clarification but always pass through without discussion at WHC meetings so their contents stay a bit hidden.

We’ve had them as a Connection for a long time, but it was just a list without explanations – so it did not fit the requirement that we can actually learn something from it. I decided to refocus it, by only mentioning changes made to the core zones (about 60% of the modifications regard buffer zone changes or new buffer zones). The new definition will be: “Sites where a "Minor modification” has been approved after the year of inscription. Includes only modifications to the core zone that add or remove a named element.”

The difference between a minor boundary modification and an extension

There are actually three mechanisms within the WH process that deal with site boundaries. There is an ongoing ‘project’ of the WHC called ‘Clarification of boundaries’ which requests proper maps and coordinates …

It took me 35 years of travel as an adult, visiting 126 countries and 873 World Heritage Sites, before I finally made it to New York. I had a nice place to stay near the Flatiron building in Midtown Manhattan, and it almost felt like I lived there. I did not enter many places, I enjoyed just walking around and taking the subway or bus to cover the larger distances. Overall I found it had quite a European feel to it and it wasn't as crazy loud as you see on TV. The city’s 2 WHS and 3 TWHS are on the well-trodden tourist trail, but I’ll try to add some insights from a World Heritage perspective.

On my first morning in the city, I took the first ferry of the day to the Statue of Liberty . With a starting time of 9 a.m. on your ticket, you are allowed to enter the queue at 8.15 and the security tent at 8.30. I managed to get a spot on the upper deck. From here you get the best photo opportunities of the statue right before the ferry docks at the island (it does a small …

On my recent trip to the eastern half of the USA, I visited all three ‘mounds’ or earthworks WHS: Cahokia , Hopewell and Poverty Point . During my preparations, I found the last one the most intriguing. And although it probably has the least remaining visible remains, after my visit I still think Poverty Point is the most interesting of the three sites. Reviews of the other two will be published as well in the coming weeks, but I will now put the spotlight on Poverty Point.

The site isn’t visited that often as it lies in the middle of nowhere deep in Louisiana. I ‘did’ it as a day trip from Dallas by rental car – it’s 5 hours each way, which is long of course but it’s a straight shot east on cruise control and without much traffic. ‘Poverty Point World Heritage Site’ (this name is used on road signs to distinguish it from a nature park also called Poverty Point) lies just outside the cute towns of Delhi and Epps where everybody seems to live in a prefab house and have his or her own church.

Poverty Point is the oldest of …

The US City of Chicago was the venue for the 2023 WHS Meetup. It’s a great city that can hold anyone’s interest for a couple of days. It’s very walkable as well - we walked over 11km on the first day for example, on wide, clean and relatively quiet sidewalks. Its public transport, although maybe not fully appreciated by its residents, also is convenient and inexpensive. To the WH Traveller, it has two locations of the Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings WHS to offer and the Early Chicago Skyscrapers TWHS.

We started on Day 1 with a pre-tour walk at 8 a.m. through the Oak Park neighborhood. This lovely residential area is home to numerous Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, including his home and studio. Some of his designs were easy to spot, others a bit harder as they were more conservative than his signature Prairie Style. Also, I counted at least one squirrel in every garden and many of the historic buildings were showing subtle Halloween decorations.

Our first tour of the day was at Union Temple. This has always been an active church, but it is far from a traditional church building. Wright ‘won’ this …