Blog WH Travellers

WH Travel Focus

The implicit aim of the members of this community is to visit as many WHS as possible. Or as many as they’ve set themselves as a goal. But there are also smaller ‘achievements’ to be gained. A satisfying and popular subgoal for example is having a country ‘complete’, especially one of the biggies. And there are other cross-sections to make that show the specific Travel Focus of our WH Travellers. For example: who has bagged the most WHS in Africa? Or who has visited the most WHS on Uninhabited islands?

Countries completed

From the 3 countries that have the most WHS within their borders, China is completed by 5, Italy by 11 and Germany by 20 community members.

Looking at the countries that cover a large geographical area: 3 members have the USA complete (Don Parrish, Zoë Sheng, Jeanne OGrady). No one has Canada complete. No one has Russia (Ivan & Martina have 28/30, missing Uvs Nuur and Wrangel Island). Australia is best covered by Shandos Cleaver (18/20), missing Macquarie and Heard & McDonald Islands.

Ever-popular Turkey (8) seems to be relatively easy to complete, and Mexico (2) only has the Archipiélago de Revillagigedo as a tricky one. Completing the UK is notoriously difficult because of the many remote islands on its list (Solivagant comes out best with 31/33, missing Henderson Island and the easy St. George, Bermuda).

Best by continent

When we look at the WHS per continent (using the UNESCO definition of “regions”), the top scorers are:

  • Africa: the late Iain Jackson comes out best by far (67/106)
  • Arab States: Singaporean Zen Zeng comes first (71/87), Hungarian Szucs Tamacs wins silver with 70 and Chinese Shihe Huang is 3rd with 69.
  • Asia and the Pacific: Zen Zeng is first here as well (247/283), closely followed by Zoë Sheng (239)
  • Europe and North America: Zoë Sheng comes out first (501/619); Ivan Rucek - thanks to his great scores in Russia and Turkey - is best overall in Europe only (463/575)
  • Latin America and the Caribbean: Iain Jackson again (117/155, see his missing map below), Atila & Nihal Ege doing well too with 105 as does Luis Filipe Gaspar.

I’ve dumped the top 50’s in a dynamic table for you to browse and in a pdf for future reference.

Difficult to reach

We can of course apply the same kind of queries to the travel-themed connections.  There are the trivial ones, such as “Who has seen the most WHS with chimpanzees in the wild?” (Iain Jackson 6/13) or the most Located in a Capital City (Solivagant has almost all of them, 85/89)?

Or these ones, that tell us something about the logistical difficulty factor:

Top rankings for these connections can be found here, including a few extra ones such as Arctic, Dependent territories, and those with 'ticks' spread out over the highest number of countries.

Do you pursue any specific WH-related travel subgoals?

Els - 10 April 2022

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Comments
Astraftis 24 April 2022

I might mention serial completism: leaving pile dwellings aside, for many it is actually possible to visit all sites, even if it can be quite an effort. I'm setting it as a goal for some selected serial sites. Also "regional completism" for transnational serial sites.

Lubos 14 April 2022

Recently I did about 19 WHS in Spain in 21 days. Not the best way when it comes to quality sightseeing but somehow for me satisfying never the less. And I like to do some kind of speed WHS hunting in the future as well.

Philipp Peterer 12 April 2022

I am obsessed with having good weather when I visit. So I try to visit as many as possible when at least the sun is showing partially.
Also trying to cover as much as possible when in a new country and complete smaller ones in one trip.
Getting nowhere in terms of inscription years. My range there is 67-21%.

Nan 12 April 2022

>> Also, I prefer ticking more rather as less. For exampme would love to visit Wrangel. But it eats a lot of days so I rather go somewhere else.

Used to be my approach, too. But nowadays the clusters are gone. And after having reached a certain quantity, it's more about the quality to me.

Chris W (christravelblog) 10 April 2022

I have no sub goals in particularly but do prefer finishing a whole country at once if its do-able in 5-14 days. I also prefer a new country over a re-visit of one I have been.

I do go to places first which have my personal interest the most (of course will also visit sights less interesting).

Also, I prefer ticking more rather as less. For exampme would love to visit Wrangel. But it eats a lot of days so I rather go somewhere else.

Nan 10 April 2022

I think completing inscription years is more reasonable nowadays. Years tend to mix continentsxamd easy and hard one. The early years are also very high quality.

For a country complete in 2020 or so makes more sense. In my case, Italy will be undone soon again. And incessant battle against mediocre new sites, gets upended by giving a reference year.

Last but not least, finished the Hanseatic city leagues connection.