Joel on the Road Profile

Joel on the Road
Joel on the Road.

One of the few token Australians. Back to work after six years of full-time travelling, eagerly anticipating the day we can continue the journey!

I don't sound like Crocodile Hunter, even though he was my friend's uncle's neighbour.

Visited Sites Joel on the Road

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Legend

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Recent Reviews Joel on the Road


Village de Sidi Bou Saïd (T)

Joel on the Road Australia - 07-May-25

Village de Sidi Bou Saïd (T)

The dossier for Sidi Bou Said speaks glowingly of an important Mediterranean hilltop town, with palaces and big houses and important religious shrines and so on. The reality (at least for our visit) was a typical Mediterranean tourist village, featuring a packed main street with souvenir stalls, Nutella crepe vendors and so on.

We spent an hour or so here and honestly didn’t find much of interest. It was cold and raining steadily during our visit, so it wasn’t the sparkling jewel we had semi-expected. The highlight for us was Dar El Annabi, a restored old mansion built in the traditional style. It was interesting to wander around, a felt like a very fancy version of Dars we had stayed in elsewhere in Tunisia.

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Djerba

Joel on the Road Australia - 07-May-25

Djerba

Djerba is a cultural landscape that reflects how local people survived and thrived on a harsh desert island. The dossier and the inscription criteria speak of overcoming the unique challenges in finding food and water, building shelters, developing an economy, defending themselves, and so on. This sounds interesting enough, though a bit vague like most cultural landscapes.

However, almost none of the inscribed locations reflect these criteria. Of the 31 locations specifically mentioned, 25 are mosques, along with a catholic church, a synagogue, and a souk. Which honestly makes this inscription baffling.

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Yin Xu

Joel on the Road Australia - 05-Oct-24

Yin Xu

I’m generally wary of sites in the “something important happened here, but is no longer actually here” category, but Yin Xu was a pleasant surprise. As Els noted in her review, there are two components to this site: the old city, and the royal tombs. But the highlight of this site isn’t actually on the list: the gleaming new museum which had only just opened when we visited in August 2024.

The site is largely focused on the Shang Dynasty, which lasted from approximately 1700-1000 BCE. Most of what we know about the Shang comes from their writing system, inscribed in tiny characters on tortoise shells and other animal bones. It’s considered the birthplace of Chinese writing, and many modern Chinese characters have directly evolved from their Shang equivalents.

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Ping Yao

Joel on the Road Australia - 07-Sep-24

Ping Yao

Ping Yao is a beautiful and well-preserved old city, located in China’s Shanxi province. It was an important centre of trade, commerce, and political power for centuries, mainly during the Qing and Ming dynasties, and much of the old historic core of the city is still intact and in good condition.

There are lots of well-preserved wooden buildings, brightly coloured and with exquisite Chinese characters decorating the facades, hidden laneways and [...]

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Longmen Grottoes

Joel on the Road Australia - 03-Sep-24

Longmen Grottoes

Longmen Grottoes is a large collection of Buddhist carvings into caves and grottoes, in a kilometre-long series of cliffs above the Yi River. There are several thousand caves and grottoes here, with tens of thousands of carvings; everything from a 19-meter high Buddha statue, to minuscule figurines scarcely 10cm high. Most of the carvings date back to a period between 500-700 AD. Like many cave art sites, it’s been subjected to centuries of weathering, looting, and vandalism, so the overwhelming majority of the statues are damaged in some way - eroded, faded paint, faces smashed off, looted, and so on.

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Profile Data

Name
Joel on the Road
Country
Australia
Ranking
38
Website
website
Rating Stats
Levuka 3
Røros 2.5
Yin Xu 2.5
Ahmadabad 1.5
Djerba 1
  1. Alexandria, ancient remains and the new library (T)
  2. Ancient cities of Upper Myanmar : Innwa, Amarapura, Sagaing, Mingun, Mandalay (T)
  3. Archaeological Site and Historic Centre of Panamá City (T)
  4. Archaeological Sites of the Ancient Shu State: Site at Jinsha and Joint Tombs of Boat- shaped Coffins in Chengdu City, S (T)
  5. Architecture Moderne du XX siècle de la Ville de Montevideo (T)
  6. Auckland Volcanic Fields (T)
  7. Australian Cornish Mining Sites: Burra and Moonta (T)
  8. Brazilian Fortresses Ensemble (T)
  9. Brooklyn Bridge (T)
  10. California Current Conservation Complex (T)
  11. Çanakkale (Dardanelles) and Gelibolu (Gallipoli) Battles Zones in the First World War (T)
  12. Capital Fortifications of Hanyang : Hangyangdoseong Capital City Wall, Bukhansanseong Mountain Fortress and Tangchundaeseong Defense Wall (T)
  13. Casablanca, Ville du XXème siécle, carrefour d'influences (T)
  14. Central Park (T)
  15. Chapultepec Woods, Hill and Castle (T)
  16. Chocolate Hills Natural Monument (T)
  17. Coron Island Natural Biotic Area (T)
  18. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's Home-Study Museum (T)
  19. Diocletian's Palace and the Historical Nucleus of Split (extension) (T)
  20. Dreams in Stone - the palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee (T)
  21. Eglise et Monastère de Sao Bento, Rio de Janeiro (T)
  22. El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area (T)
  23. Ellis Island (T)
  24. Flinders Ranges (T)
  25. Gdansk - Town of Memory and Freedom (T)
  26. Great Desert Landscapes (T)
  27. Great Sandy World Heritage Area (T)
  28. Großglockner High Alpine Road / Großglockner Hochalpenstraße (T)
  29. Guano Islands, Islets, and Capes National Reserve System (T)
  30. Historical-town planning ensemble of Ston (T)
  31. Inle Lake (T)
  32. Insular area and bay of Colonia del Sacramento (T)
  33. Karst Valleys of Slovakia (T)
  34. Khor Dubai (T)
  35. Knights Fortifications around the Harbours of Malta (T)
  36. Lake Titicaca (T)
  37. Le centre historique de Tétouan (T)
  38. Le complexe hydraulique romain de Zaghouan-Carthage (T)
  39. Le Palais de Justice de Bruxelles (T)
  40. Les Alpes de la Méditerranée (Monaco) (T)
  41. Les Mausolées Royaux de Numidie, de la Maurétanie et les monuments funéraires pré-islamiques (Tunisia) (T)
  42. Les villes antiques de la Narbonnaise et leur territoire: Nimes, Arles, Glanum, aqueducs, via Domitia (T)
  43. Monuments, Sites and Cultural Landscape of Chiang Mai, Capital of Lanna (T)
  44. Moulay Idriss Zerhoun (T)
  45. Murujuga Cultural Landscape (T)
  46. Nasca Aqueducts (T)
  47. National Park (Taman Negara) of Peninsular Malaysia (T)
  48. Palais de la Culture, ancien siège du Ministere de l'Education et de la Santé, Rio de Janeiro (T)
  49. Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct (T)
  50. Peruvian Central Railway (T)
  51. Pobiti Kamani Natural Monument (T)
  52. Pulacayo, Industrial Heritage Site (T)
  53. Rural Temples of Cusco (T)
  54. Sacred Titicaca Lake (T)
  55. Salt Mines of Maras (T)
  56. The Colonial Transisthmian Route of Panamá (Ruta Colonial Transístmica de Panamá) (T)
  57. The concept of the lenticular historical town core of Kosice City (T)
  58. The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area (extension to existing property) (T)
  59. The historic town of Korcula (T)
  60. The Industrial Complexes at Ostrava (T)
  61. The Lofoten islands (T)
  62. The Old Town of Jakarta (T)
  63. The Olive Grove Landscapes of Andalusia (T)
  64. The royal necropolis of the Thracian city of Seuthopolis – a serial site, extension of the Kazanlak Thracian tomb (T)
  65. The Royal Sites of Ireland: Cashel, Dún Ailinne, Hill of Uisneach, Rathcroghan Complex, and Tara Complex (T)
  66. Tilaurakot, the archaeological remains of ancient Shakya Kingdom (T)
  67. Tokaj Wine Region (T)
  68. Village de Sidi Bou Saïd : Harmonie architecturale et spirituelle en Méditerranée (T)
  69. Wooden Monasteries of Konbaung Period : Ohn Don, Sala, Pakhangyi, Pakhannge, Legaing, Sagu, Shwe-Kyaung (Mandalay) (T)