Maddeningly Close

First published: Sun 03 Nov 2024.

Els Slots

Maddeningly Close

There’s a forum topic dating back to 2014 already on this subject: WHS where you have been very close to but missed out on for some reason. We know them as “Near Misses” as well, although the result (frustration instead of relief) is the opposite of a “near miss” in safety procedures where disaster was just avoided; our Near Miss is when you were nearby, but you missed the WHS.

I have been very close to 12 (4%) out of the 293 I haven’t visited yet. How did those happen?

Visited long before inscription

First, I have two recent WHS where I had been very near early in my travel life:

In 1994, I thoroughly explored the Chinese province of Yunnan for a month with a small Dutch group. I have 3 WHS ‘ticks’ as a result of it. But then, in 2023, there was the “ Ancient Tea Plantations of Pu'er ” – in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan. Unfortunately, I don’t have a travel diary from that trip. I studied my photos, but the closest I could find was Jingzhen (35km away) and some Dai and Bulang villages to the south of it (photos of rubber and rice plantations, no tea!).
In 1998, I went to Sikkim and Bhutan. Part of the itinerary was visits to the Pemayangtse and Rumtek monasteries. Both lie just outside Khangchendzonga National Park (2016) and Pemayangtse even is mentioned (and pictured!) in the AB evaluation: “although not included in the nominated property or in the buffer zone, ..., need[s] to be protected and integrated into the interpretation and communication of the values of the nominated property”.

Unaware

I also have a couple where I came close, but wasn’t aware that the site would be up for WH status.

White City of Tel Aviv – visited in 2000, inscribed 2003. I have walked the streets of Tel Aviv, but not into this quarter as far as I can recall based on the pictures.
Aasivissuit – Nipisat – visited in 2006, inscribed in 2018. I have had a day to fill at the Kangerlussuaq Airport, I did take an excursion from there, but went for the musk-ox safari as I did not think there was anything WHS-worthy nearby.
Persian Caravanserai – visited in 2016, inscribed in 2024. So painful this one. I came within 150 meters(!) of the Caravanserai in Qazvin when visiting the Chehelsotoon Palace across the street.
Trans-Iranian Railway . If I had known I could have gone for the quick ‘tick’ of Teheran Railway Station, which lies only 4km from Golestan Palace. Visited in 2016, inscribed 2021.
Astronomical Observatories of Kazan Federal University – visited in 2019, inscribed in 2023. Looking at the numbers, no one guessed this would ever become a WHS. 96 community members have visited the Kazan Kremlin and only 7 of them went to see the Observatory which actually lies about 1.5km outside of the walls of the Kremlin.
Flow Country —Visited 2017, inscribed 2024. The road to Orkney passes through The Flow Country, and although I remarked that I enjoyed the landscape along the way, I did not focus on it at all.

Betted on the wrong horse

Here I guessed the ‘wrong’ locations of a serial site before inscription, or did not fully acknowledge the potential or the scope of a TWHS:

Western Ghats : I have been to Tamil Nadu during my RTW trip in 2011 and I knew this was going to be a WHS (it became so in 2012). By bus, I crossed the hills close to Nilgiri NP, and even walked to Doddabetta Peak, but I think I wasn’t aware of the exact boundaries at the time. Photo 1 shows the Nilgiri Hills, part of the Western Ghats but not an inscribed area.
Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites : on my South Africa trip in 2016 I even spent a day in transit to visit two of the proposed locations of this serial site when it still was on the Tentative List. But both in the end did not make the final cut! Of the components that got inscribed, I might have had a passing glance at the Union Buildings while driving through Pretoria. But I have no recollection at all, can you even see them from the road? Photo 2 shows the Howick Capture Site, a component dropped when the nomination focused a bit less on the life of Mandela and more on Anti-Apartheid institutions.
Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli – visited in 2014, inscribed in 2024. I have been to Tripoli, the bus station where I arrived lies some 500m from the fairgrounds, but I went the other way – to the Citadel and what I at the time saw as the more promising TWHS. Photo 3 shows the Clock Tower in the center of Tripoli, just a few minutes walk from the WHS.

Travel fatigue / lack of time

This is a category I won’t admit to easily, as I rarely give up on travel goals. But well, on my 5.5-month RTW trip, I was so fed up with eucalypt forests (and Australia in general) that I skipped the Gondwana Rainforests and went for a relaxing day in Sydney instead.

How many “near misses” do you have, compared to your WH count? And do you have additional reasons than those listed above for missing out on those?

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Comments

15 comments

Kyle Magnuson 8 months, 1 week ago (Nov 3, 2024)

I have corrected some misses in the past. So I only have 2 frustrating misses. An early one from 2011 in Palawan, due to weather, poor planning and travel fatigue. The other, also poor planning for touring the Luis Barragán House in Mexico City. Lessons have been learned, in the decade plus since, my planning is much more thorough. Additionally, I try to provide ample time for most high-interest WHS in case of poor weather or in case of an unforeseen issue that might negatively affect my appreciation of its OUV. Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Palawan, Philippines) Luis Barragán House and Studio (DF, Mexico

Zoë Sheng 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

Does Al-Faw count as a near-miss if I didn't enter the "core zone" - because it's locked up?

Solivagant 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

Could I suggest something along the lines of "Final leg failure"... or even "fate" .... you knew about the site...you have made a reasonable plan... and have done everythng you could reasonably have been expected to do to implement it ...but then that last leg didn't work out for no good reason. You don't even have to have got that close.... all it needed was one more travel step. I think you have one of these els - St Kilda! I have Târgu Jiu, long before it was inscribed - only 40kms away and was invovled in a traffic accident - not my fault but the police hassle etc meant i never got there! There is a thin line of course between "bad luck" and "bad planning"..... If you arrive to find a place closed then should you have known? If the boat didn't sail was it because you chose the wrong route?

Els Slots 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

That's a good one, Solivagant, but St. Kilda doesn't feel like a near miss to me, I have never been even close. Maybe I'd see it that way if we went out and had to turn around halfway for some reason. I have had other trips cancelled, like Sangha (during Covid, fortunately made up for it this year) or Syria *(had 2 trips cancelled earlier in my travel life).

Solivagant 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

So you are introducing "feels like.." into the definition!! I can tell you that, if i had travelled across eurtope by plane, bus and car to the far north est of Sctoland.....was only a couple of hours away by a boat and the boat wouldn't take me there it would seem like a "near miss" to me!!

Solivagant 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

By the way, i did say "final leg".... you cant compare trips which were cancelled even before you set out with ones where you were only 1 step away ...even if the objective was "over the horizon" and not actually seen....

Luboang 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

I do have at least couple of sites on my visited list which I have seen long ago without any clue of their unique status. I will likely revisit them and potentially even remove them till then. I did develop a kind of "mental hygiene practise" in regard to these situations like 'near misses' and its a simple fact that it gives me opportunity to re-visit regions, places and countries which are most of the time well worth repeated visit anyway...

Els Slots 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

@Zoe - I think your experience and that of others at Al-Faw is more like "trying to visit the unvisitable". You were at the right location and you were aware of its (future) WH status (so not a near miss in that sense), but could not see the thing you came to see.

Els Slots 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

Maybe that (Al-Faw) is a "Final leg failure" as well

Wojciech Fedoruk 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

Persian Karawanserai is my best example. How far it was from Bisotun town, 200-500m? The same for Kazan. I also betted the wrong horse with the Welsh slate landscape and my final leg didn't work for Skellig. I am sure there are some more examples and there will be more, such as Alvaro Siza's architecture.

Solivagant 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

@Els "Maybe that (Al-Faw) is a "Final leg failure" as well"....... IMO only if, with better planning or luck/fate one could have achieved that "final leg". i.e if you turned up on the wrong day or if the site wasn't open because the guardian was off ill (Yes that has happend to us....luckily we were able to rearrange!!)

Bernard Joseph Esposo Guerrero 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

I remember skipping Soltaniyeh in the end while travelling from Kermanshah to Tabriz as I wasn't feeling well during that leg of the trip. It was on the way. Recently, in Italy, I was supposed to be seeing Villa d'Este and Villa Adriana on one day, which is very doable, but decided last minute to drop Villa Adriana mainly due to "Roman ruins" fatigue and instead spent the time in Tivoli itself. I felt the same thing when driving from Prague to Munich, where instead of squeezing both Holasovice and Cesky Krumlov together, I dropped the last one mainly because I got tired of old towns (super touristy at that) and preferred to spend more time in one low-key site. Silly of me to skip the Byeongsanseowon Confucian Academy too when I was in Hahoe, only to find out a year later that it would be a part of another WHS.

Philipp Peterer 8 months ago (Nov 3, 2024)

I also corrected most near misses. Those were Luis Barragan House, UNAM, Ephesus, Via Appia, St. Cathrine Monastery, Western Limes, Mafra Palace, Grand Canyon and more. My current near misses are: Was in the region, but missed to visit: Erfurt, Slate mines, Sitio Burle Marx, Cordouan, Grand Canal Visit not successful, but intended: St. Kilda, Al-Faw, Sans Souci Citadel

Squiffy 8 months ago (Nov 4, 2024)

I came down with the galloping trots on the last day of a trip from St Petersburg to Beijing by train, back before I'd even heard of World Heritage Sites. Missed out on Temple of Heaven / Summer Palace as a result. I was staying a couple of blocks away from the Parisian Le Corbusier elements at the point they got inscribed but they were closed on the day I was there so didn't bother prioritising going to see from the outside. Likewise I didn't prioritise going to see Palais Stoclet from the outside. But at least those two are easily rectifiable. Buenos Aires is my Great White Whale. I've been within 2 miles of ESMA and within 2 blocks of the Argentine Workers' Assembly Hall.

Alikander 8 months ago (Nov 7, 2024)

The one that stings the most is Aachen cathedral. It was unesxpectedly closed the day I went. Turns out they had an event conmemorating the deaths from the 2019 flood. I've also missed: "monuments of oviedo and the kingdom of asturias" and "palau de la musica catalana and the hospital of sant pau" I'm kinda dubious on wether to count or nor the pamir national park and the coffee landscape of colombia as technically I wasn't inside either propperty, but their borders are honestly pretty random. I saw the lakes and the mountains of the pamir, I just didn't go inside the national park; and i tasted the coffee in a local coffe plantation in colombia plus saw the vernacular architecture of the region, it just so happens that that specific coffe plantation and towns i visited were not in the site.