World Heritage Site

Wojciech’s recent review of the Minaret of Jam (“The road from Herat takes 13 hours…”) sparked a debate about whether this Afghan icon is The Most Remote Cultural WHS. A quick look at our “Takes more than 5 days”-connection brings up Bikini Atoll, but all other remote ones listed there are natural or mixed. In a quest to find more Remote Cultural WHS, I took a systematic approach.

The Approach

I started with a subset of sites that are rarely visited: a combination of the ‘least visited WHS’ (cutting it to 10 members or fewer that have visited) and the ones in the '1,000 visitors or fewer' connection. This resulted in a list of 46 different Cultural WHS.

Then I tried to measure the time it takes from a hub city to get to the WHS. With a hub city I mean a place with decent hotels and frequent onward connections to the rest of the country, including an international airport. I used what is mentioned in the reviews and also Google Maps. Timings are calculated under ‘normal’ conditions (no active war, no weather disruptions, not out-of-season).

I also added the time necessary to get from the hub to the international airport, as some hubs are already pretty remote. If that transfer takes 5h or more, I added a * to the site.

Finally, I divided them into 4 groups with increasing grades of remoteness.

The Results

Not too difficult

Even the 46 that are not often visited contain 34 sites that are actually not remote. They are either recent additions to the list so many people haven’t made the detour yet, or places that are quite hard to access for other reasons such as insecurity. 

Within 2 hours of a hub are: Ancient ferrous metallurgy sites (Ouagadougou), Ashur (Mosul), Bamiyan Valley (Bamyan), Deer Stone Monuments (Tsetserleg*), Gedeo Cultural landscape (Dila*), Hegmataneh (Hamedan or Kermanshah), Kazan Astronomical Observatories (Kazan), Kuk (Mount Hagen), Kujataa (Narsarsuaq), Melka Kunture and Balchit (Addis Abeba), Ruins of Loropéni (Gaoua*), Sado Island (Niigata). Tadrart Acacus (Ghat or Awaynat), Taputapuātea (Uturoa on Raiatea), Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa (Sibudhu Cave: Durban). The place named within brackets after each WHS is the proposed hub.

With a bit more effort, but still less than 4 hours one way, the following can be reached: Ancient Kingdom of Saba (Sana’a), Hawraman/Uramanat  (Sanandaj), Lower Valley of the Awash (Semera), Moidams (Jorhat), Sudanese style mosques (Korhogo), Thimlich Ohinga (Kisumu), Tomb of Askia (Gao, pictured below, (c)Roman Bruehwiler).

Long day trip

It gets really serious with the following ones, which take 4 hours or more to reach from the hub, but are still feasible for a loooong day trip because you desperately want that ‘tick’:

1. Al-Faw – hub Abha 5.5h drive 
2. Dholavira – hub Bhuj, about 4h by car
3. Petroglyphs of the Lake Onega and the White Sea – hub Petrozavodsk, “then 370 km by rented car via surprisingly good road to Belomorsk.” 
4. Rudreshwara (Ramappa) Temple – hub Hyderabad, 4h by car
5. The Royal Court of Tiébélé – hub Ouagadougou, full day trip (~4 hours each way)

Overnight needed

In this final group, the sites are so remote that an overnight stay is required away from the hub. That night is spent in temporary or basic accommodations:

1. Bikini Atoll – hub Majuro, 3 days sailing from there.
2. Great Burkhan Khaldun - hub Ulaan Bator, the only reports I can find tell about spending the night at a ger camp nearby
3. Kenozero Lake - hub Arkhangelsk and still a 470 km ride by rail/car.
4. Mbanza Kongo – 6 hours by car from Luanda, can’t see another hub closer and the site is still unreviewed.
5. Minaret of Jam – hub Herat or Bamyan, both taking some 13 hours to reach.
6. Petroglyphs of the Mongolian Altai – no reviews yet, but the hub seems to be Ölgi (with a domestic airport and 35,000 inhabitants). You’d have to stay overnight camping somewhere closer to the petroglyphs.
7. SGang Gwaay – hub Vancouver, requires a flight to Sandspit and at least taking part in a 2-day boat tour to get to the right island. 
8. Sukur - hasn’t been visited by anyone, so?? Abuja airport is 14 hours away, so definitely a * as well.

I would like to hear whether you have any “intelligence” on the sites in the two last groups and if they can be reached faster. And also when you know of any other cultural WHS that takes at least a long day trip (4 hours or more one way) from a hub.