2023 was my second year of full-time travel (read here about Day 0 and Year 1 ). It felt like a routine already, as I found the right balance between being home and away and I can now budget (travel) expenses like no other!

There were memorable trips to Madagascar, Pakistan and Zimbabwe (photo 3 shows a "bender" at Mana Pools NP), and I finally got to see what New York is in reality. You can find my updated Trip Planner here , including the actual ‘results’ of 2023. With an added total of 63 (44 new + 19 from the WHC), I am still right on track to reach 1,100 visited WHS before 2028.

Things I learned about WH Travel this year:

The best ones for the quest are the “free” ones

The ones that help the most to stay on track are the ones gained from a WHC session. In 2023 we had a double session with a lot of new inscriptions, of which I already visited 19. These made my total go up significantly without additional cost and compensated for the more expensive trips I did this year.

Going the extra mile

Some of my best memories this year resulted from paying extra or allocating more time than strictly necessary to get a ‘good’ visit to a WHS. I am thinking of the 6 days in Mana Pools NP , or the forest walk in Ambohimanga , or spending a full day in Huai Kha Khaeng (photo 2).

I am missing Europe

One of the best things about the WH journey overall is covering all WHS in Europe. I now hardly have any left in Europe (6 to be precise, not counting those in Russia, Turkey and Israel), and I really miss going out for a couple of days to some provincial town in Italy or Spain for a worthy and well-managed WHS, accompanied by a stay in an atmospheric town with simple but great food.

Starting to see the End

Somewhere during this year, for the first time in my travel life, I could see the contours of the to-do list to finish it all.

Regarding visiting different countries (I am now at 129 UN), there is only a handful left that I have not been to that really interest me. Among those are Yemen (waiting for it to fully reopen) and Papua New Guinea (needs a costly non-WHS trip). On the other hand, I have written off 19 countries that I have no interest in visiting at all:  Antigua and Barbuda, Togo, Guinea, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Bahamas, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, Grenada, Liberia, Maldives, Moldova, Nauru, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, South Sudan, Timor-Leste and Tuvalu.

Do I really need to go to Sarazm?

I am starting to see the end of the WH List as well. I have mapped out how to reach 1,000 visited WHS, with a splurge at the end. But after that? Will I push on to 1,100? Or will I put the required time and money towards revisiting sites like the Pantanal? Many of the remaining ones hold little interest to me – I considered Tajikistan for a trip in 2024 for example, but only 1 of its 3 WHS appeals to me (Tajik NP).

Also, after reaching 1,000 it will be harder to remain at the speed of about 50 new ones each year. It requires a few clusters of 10+ new WHS in one trip, and that's hard to achieve when countries like Israel/Palestine, Lebanon/Syria, Iran and Russia are more or less off the table for now.

Also have a look at Zoë's updated profile , which deals with "Seeing the End" as well. What have you learned from your travels in 2023?