Shandos Cleaver

Member since May 2017

#37 626 42

My WHS journey started properly in 2017, at the start of a multi-year trip to Europe. My husband and I had planned to travel "slowly", but that was quickly forgotten as we criss-crossed Europe ticking off WHS.

Complicating matters was the fact that we were travelling with our dog, a Miniature Dachshund called Schnitzel. Despite not being allowed into many sites, he's probably the dog who's visited the most WHS!

We're pictured here visiting the picturesque town of Edam, in the Netherlands - on a day where we visited the Beemster Polder and part of the Defences of Amsterdam sites.

In the years since, we've made multiple overseas trips targeting WHS, most recently a 3-month trip to South America - finally visiting the continent for the first time after multiple attempts! 

If you're also travelling with a dog, check out my blog, Travelnuity: Dog-Friendly Travel.

My proposal for a new site: Antartica - surely our greatest natural site?

Recent Visits
  • 1
    0
    June 9, 2025
    Chief Roi Mata's Domain
  • 9
    0
    April 30, 2025
    Amphitheater of El Jem, Carthage, Djerba, Dougga/Thugga, Ichkeul National Park ...
  • 9
    0
    April 21, 2025
    Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, Mazagan, Medina of Essaouira, Medina of Fez, Medina of Marrakesh …
>

About Shandos Cleaver

First name
Shandos
Member since
May 2017
Country of Origin
None
Visits
Rank
#37
WHS
626
Tentative Sites
42
Website Participation
Reviews
20
Ratings

Ratings

World Heritage Sites
Tentative Sites
626 72
Photos
N/A
Locations
N/A
Zones
N/A

Reviews by Shandos Cleaver

Chief Roi Mata's Domain by marcel staron

Chief Roi Mata's Domain (Inscribed)

Chief Roi Mata's Domain

It took four attempts and five years for us to finally visit Vanuatu and Chief Roi Mata’s Domain, thanks to Covid, issues with Air Vanuatu in the lead up to …

Ichkeul National Park by Shandos Cleaver

Ichkeul National Park (Inscribed)

Ichkeul National Park

Visiting a site like Ichkeul National Park, where it's not clear what if anything you can visit, is a lot harder to plan by public transport than by car. Especially …

Levuka by Shandos Cleaver

Levuka (Inscribed)

Levuka

Levuka is not an easy site to get to, even if you start on the right side of the world in Sydney, Australia. From Sydney, it's a just a quick …

Tasmanian Wilderness by Shandos Cleaver

Tasmanian Wilderness (Inscribed)

Tasmanian Wilderness

The Tasmanian Wilderness WHS is huge, covering nearly a quarter of the island of Tasmania. Within the WHS are included seven national parks and multiple other conservation areas. The below …

Flinders Ranges by Shandos Cleaver

Flinders Ranges (Nominated)

Flinders Ranges

The Flinders Ranges is a well-known tourist destination in South Australia, about a 5 hour drive north of Adelaide in a semi-arid region. It's best known for its beautiful landscapes …

Australian Convict Sites by Shandos Cleaver

Australian Convict Sites (Inscribed)

Australian Convict Sites

Growing up in Australia, one of the main subjects of our history classes were convicts. Nearly all of the Australian state capitals were firstly settled by Europeans as convict penal …

Parramatta Female Factory by Shandos Cleaver

Parramatta Female Factory (Nominated)

Parramatta Female Factory

By a funny coincidence, the day that I read of this new Australian site being added to the tentative list, I was already planning on visiting Parramatta (the Wistaria Gardens …

Western Ghats by Shandos Cleaver

Western Ghats (Inscribed)

Western Ghats

The Western Ghats are one of those intimidating natural WHSs to visit. With 39 locations scattered across a huge area of India, it's difficult enough to determine the geographical location …

Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas by Shandos Cleaver

Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysa… (Inscribed)

Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas

After booking cheap flights to the southern India city of Tiruchirappali (or Trichy for short), we were disappointed that we didn't have quite enough time to visit Kochi. However, I …

Cerrado Protected Areas by Shandos Cleaver

Cerrado Protected Areas (Inscribed)

Cerrado Protected Areas

Our visit to the Cerrado Protected Areas was nearly a near miss for us. Arriving at the Movida rental car counter at Brasilia Airport at lunchtime, it ended up taking …

Quebrada de Humahuaca by Shandos Cleaver

Quebrada de Humahuaca (Inscribed)

Quebrada de Humahuaca

Originally when visiting Argentina, we planned to hire a car to visit the Quebrada de Humahuaca. However, a quick search online showed that there were multiple reasonably priced day trips …

Paraty and Ilha Grande by Shandos Cleaver

Paraty and Ilha Grande (Inscribed)

Paraty and Ilha Grande

There's a lot of options for how to visit the Paraty WHS, which is not surprising considering it is a Mixed site and consists of a number of different locations, …

Portobelo-San Lorenzo by Shandos Cleaver

Portobelo-San Lorenzo (Inscribed)

Portobelo-San Lorenzo

Initially when planning our stopover in Panama City (an easy and cheap option with COPA), we had planned to visit the Panama WHS and the Portobelo part of the Portobelo-San …

Jesuit Missions of Trinidad and Jesus by Shandos Cleaver

Jesuit Missions of Trinidad a… (Inscribed)

Jesuit Missions of Trinidad and Jesus

In South America, there are at least 4 separate World Heritage Sites related to the Jesuits: the Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos in Bolivia (which are still living towns and …

Fray Bentos by Shandos Cleaver

Fray Bentos (Inscribed)

Fray Bentos

Former industrial sites can be divisive World Heritage Sites. I'm not against industrial sites (partially as they can be interesting to photograph), although a multitude of mining and planned town …

El Tajin by Shandos Cleaver

El Tajin (Inscribed)

El Tajin

After a long closure due to Covid and a hurricane, reports came in early February 2022, while we were still in central Mexico, that El Tajin had re-opened. Not that …

Shirakami-Sanchi by Shandos Cleaver

Shirakami-Sanchi (Inscribed)

Shirakami-Sanchi

Initially, we hadn't planned to visit Shirakami-Sanchi on our first trip to Japan. But I realised that we had one day of our 14-day JR Pass possibly going to the …

Liangzhu Archaeological Site by Shandos Cleaver

Liangzhu Archaeological Site (Inscribed)

Liangzhu Archaeological Site

Liangzhu is located on the outskirts of Hangzhou, not far from the furthest reaches of the metro system. Initially when we planned our visit we were only aware of the …

Gorham's Cave Complex by Shandos Cleaver

Gorham's Cave Complex (Inscribed)

Gorham's Cave Complex

A couple of months ago the new "visitors platform" opened for the Gorham's Cave site in Gibraltar. I couldn't find much information online, so just assumed it was a publicly …

Garajonay by Shandos Cleaver

Garajonay (Inscribed)

Garajonay

The intention behind our recent trip to Tenerife was twofold: enjoying some sunshine at the end of our first European winter, plus naturally visiting the World Heritage Sites on Tenerife …