One of the neat statistics we gather via community members on this website is the visitor rating of a WHS. After you have visited a site, you can give it a rating of 1 to 5 stars. The rating represents a mix of “WHS worthiness” and your experience on the day. If you have not rated anything so far, log in to your profile and go to Rate WHS to contribute.

While these ratings help to find the best WHS, they of course also provide insight into the worst!

The Worst 10

At the time of writing, we have 49 WHS with a weighted average score below 2 stars. You can find them at the WHS Index page, and sort by Score.

The worst-rated 10 are:

1. Tugay forests (0.38)
2. Kazan Federal University Observatories (1.01)
3. Valongo Wharf (1.17)
4. Al-Faw (1.29)
5. Battir (1.38)
6. Srebarna Nature Reserve (1.38)
7. Kuk (1.46)
8. Melka Kunture and Balchit (1.47)
9. Chongoni Rock Art (1.49)
10. The Prehistoric Sites of the Khorramabad Valley (1.52)

When this selection is adjusted to WHS that got 5 votes or more, to exclude individual voices counting too strongly, the top-10 is:

1. Kazan Federal University Observatories (1.01)
2. Valongo Wharf (1.17)
3. Battir (1.38)
4. Srebarna Nature Reserve (1.38)
5. Melka Kunture and Balchit (1.47)
6. Chongoni Rock Art (1.49)
7. The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa (1.59)
8. FRIM Selangor (1.65)
9. Jodensavanne (1.65)
10. Santiniketan (1.65)

The list of 49 includes 39 cultural WHS, 9 natural WHS, and 1 mixed WHS. The average year of inscription is 2012. Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands and South Africa are all countries represented with more than 1 site (all have 2, except for South Africa, which has 3).

Common Denominators

"Invisible" Heritage

The biggest cluster comprises the sites where there is little or nothing “to see”: WHS that are visually underwhelming. It seems that we expect monumentality and our brain simply cannot match the story (which you really have to bring with you by studying beforehand or hiring a guide) with scarce or no remains.

The Early Hominid Sites in general are a poor category in that respect, and it is represented with 4 WHS among the worst 49. Valongo Warf and the Lower German Limes are also notorious cases, as are Beemster Polder, Kuk and the Vredefort Dome.

Sites that are poorly understood

“To see the Tugay forests, one often has to navigate permits, border zones, and extreme heat (Tigrovaya Balka is one of the hottest places in Central Asia), only to find a landscape that—while ecologically unique—looks like dense, scrubby brush to the untrained eye.” (Google Gemini's explanation for Tugay's low rating)

Sites listed among the “worst” aren’t by definition poor WHS. Sometimes they just need more effort and/or more study (to train the eye!) before a visit:

• Some ratings reflect the limited footprint the members have left at the site: they’ve looked at it from behind a fence, did not really get inside and for sure have not seen its OUV. Al Faw is a notorious case: it’s a site that to date cannot be visited. Places like Santiniketan and FRIM only get higher rates when a member has gained some sort of exclusive access – for a casual visitor, they’re frustrating sites.
• WHS that have been visited before inscription and where the narrative isn't obvious, also tend to be rated lowly.
• Community members also seem to struggle with the built aspects of African cultural heritage, looking at the inclusion of Thimlich Ohinga, Asante Traditional Buildings, and Tombs of Buganda Kings among the worst 49.

Sites with questionable OUV

Members are also harsh in their judgments when they believe a site has no OUV. It may explain the low score of the Kazan Federal University Observatories, although without reviews to date, we can't say for sure. The sites that sneaked into the List for political reasons or excessive lobbying, like Battir, find few supporters. Or those that could just have been an extension of an existing WHS, such as the Mandela Legacy Sites. Or with an unsatisfactory scope, such as the Trans-Iranian Railway.

Sites in a poor condition

When all you encounter is neglect, it will be hard to appreciate a site. This has long been the case for Abu Mena and Srebarna, for example. However, both WHS have recently improved according to the latest reviews. It will probably be the explanation for the low score of Port Royal as well, although its Fort Charles accommodates visitors well.

A few outliers

For some WHS, I was surprised to see them among the 49. Such as Chongoni Rock Art, one of only two rock art sites listed here among the many rock art WHS (the other is the Bangucheon Petroglyphs). Is it so much worse than the others? The simplicity of the design of the paintings may have worked against it.

The list of the worst WHS does not hold many natural WHS. Among those, a few West African parks (Comoé, W-Arli-Pendjari, Gola-Tiwai) stand out negatively.

2025 was my fourth year of full-time travel (read here about Day 0, Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3). It was a “Year of Calculations”, as I had a big and expensive trip to #1,000 planned late in the year. The rest of the travel year was moulded to achieve exactly the right amount of WHS at the lowest possible cost.

My best-ranked newly visited WHS of this year, all 4* or more, include Djoudj National Park, the Ahwar of Southern Iraq, Damascus, the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands and Macquarie Island. I am also glad that I could finally experience Iraq and Syria in a peaceful setting.

You can find my updated Trip Planner here, including the actual ‘results’ of 2025. With an added total of 54 (47 new + 7 from the WHC), I am still right on track.

The best ones are behind me

It’s a tough conclusion to make, but after having seen over 80% of all current WHS, I have to accept that I have already seen the best sites. Of course, there are still some to look forward to, but there is no Angkor, Florence or Virunga NP among them. I even got so far that I now only have 7 WHS left with a 4* or higher rating!

My favourite trips between #765 and #1000

During the past 4 years, during which I have been travelling full-time, these are the trips I look back to most fondly. In random order, they are:

• 5 weeks in Northern Brazil: all self-organized, the high quality of all (T)WHS here, and oh, the people!
• 2 weeks wild camping in Chad: so pure, like travelling in time. A collection of photos from that trip has been the screensaver on my laptop ever since.
• 3 weeks Zimbabwe in-depth, by all means of transport: I felt I got to know the country well.
• And of course, my cherry on the cake: the penguins of remote Macquarie Island!

The strategic approach for 2026

After passing the 1,000-mark, I am now embarking on a new stage of my WHS Quest. The cluster strategy has worked well: I think I have proven that focusing solely on WHS (rarely adding TWHS and no other ‘distractions’), choosing the biggest clusters of sites first and fully finishing these clusters (so not a single WHS in a remote corner is left behind), is a great tactic to get high numbers of ‘ticks’ quickly.

Things will be different for the next 100, because:

1. Keeping the same pace is financially unsustainable: it is not possible anymore to hold on to the 650-EUR-a-WHS rule that I set myself in the previous stage, even 1,000 EUR per WHS seems a stretch. The WHS that are left are often isolated, difficult to access and far away from my home base. Or lie in a country I won't travel to right now (Russia, Iran, Israel). So with the yearly budget staying the same, I won’t be able to squeeze the same amount of WHS out of it.
2. I got a bit tired of the cluster-approach: for every 10 WHS in a cluster, there usually are 4 poor ones, 4 that are OK and only 2 that are really good. So for the best part of a trip, you’re just ticking without seeing the best sights in the world. The cluster-approach also favours the large countries, and I don’t want to go to the same countries over and over again within a short time period (just to see more Chinese sacred mountains or Australian forests).

So for 2026, I will diversify more and focus on 3 types of sites:

1. Countries or regions that appeal to me but got left behind because they have only 1 or 2 or even 0 WHS, or where I first visited ages ago.
2. Good visits to natural sites. Taking Cerrado (Brazil) for example: you can have a perfectly tickable one-day visit to Chapada dos Veadeiros, as so many others did, but the real star here is Emas National Park with its Maned Wolves. This takes more time, money and research.
3. Back to Europe again. I have done only a few trips around Europe for the last couple of years since I have visited virtually all its WHS already. But as I have written before, the high number of visits to European regions is among the best experiences of the journey overall.

Overall, this year, I expect my trips to be a bit shorter (1-2 weeks), more frequent, and to result in less additional WHS. This way, it will take me 3 years to get to 1,100.