I expect to be a bit envious in this post, but as WHS travelers we try to visit the sites most accessible in regards to time, cost, distance, and interest. That being said, off course we try to plan and save for those "big" trips, but I suspect for many of us those weekend trips make up a good number of our world heritage site total, no? While I have tickets booked for one of those larger trips (Denmark/Sweden), I am also looking at potential road trips or short flights to more regional based travel.

These are the 8 WHS closest to my home (Los Angeles) that I have not already visited. Lately, I have been enjoying using the Google feature that measures distance "as the crow flies", here are my results.

*Already visited: [Yosemite, Redwoods, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Chaco, Taos, El Pinacate]

Not Visited
Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California 400km (nearest serial component)
Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino 805km
Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco 885km
Archeological Zone of Paquime 1,045km (tentative plan for 4 day road trip)
Yellowstone National Park 1,285km
Carlsbad Cavern National Park 1,295km (tentative plan for 4 day road trip)
Camino Real de Tierra Adentro 1,455km (nearest serial component)
Olympic National Park 1,560km (planned visit in late May, booked)

Do any of you plan this way in regards to road trips to WHS or TWHS? I suspect the brilliant work done by users in regards to WHS & TWHS maps here will have informed (or inspired) some future trips, no? Speaking for myself, a definite yes! I am curious about any "nearest to home" unvisited WHS that you might have. Is the barrier time, cost, distance, or interest?

winterkjm
click on missing on your profile page and it will show the hole you created ;)

i actually am doing the same. my boundaries at the beginning of may will be (poland then done) :
* Spiennes
* several in northern france
* several in Switzerland
* 2 in belarus: maybe over a weekend with visa restrictions lifted
* Engelsberg in Sweden: Next extended business trip to Sweden.
* Ryukan, Norway: One day fly in and out. Or one night in Oslo. Norway too freaking expensive.
* Devon/Cornwall: One in next trip to London. Maybe I travel a bit longer.

If Germany adds Ice Age art I will go there in August. :)

There's a whole crater around my home. Closest "to do" is Bourges in France, 700 kms away.

Even when I worked and had limited vacation entitlement I never found a "weekend trip" from UK a particularly efficient way of travelling to WHS, either in terms of money or in use of time. I reckon it "costs" us around £100 and 5 hours plus flight simply to "leave" UK - plus of course the air fare and costs whilst abroad (and the airfare is likely to be higher on the Friday than at any other time). The closest regional airports have very limited destinations/frequency and going down to London is a nightmare- so that leaves Manchester - 2.5 hours driving from home, 1-2 hours check in, car parking etc etc. So, at best, it needs an extra half day "off work" on the Friday and probably a very early departure from the destination on the Sunday - if there is a flight on that day !
I have just been looking at Europe to see where the most "efficient" place to live might be in terms of ease of visit to the most WHS. I place it at around Heilbronn!! From there, with your own car you could drive to a massive "circle" of WHS from N Italy in the South, Cz/Slovak in the East, Fr/Bel in the West (plus all of Germany/Austria/Switz of course) and back between a Friday and Sunday evening!

So, I always preferred to put at least a week into a trip - taking in some UK national holidays as well to minimize "annual leave" use. The way airfares work now the marginal cost of extra "flying" distance over a European destination becomes a much smaller factor within the overall cost of such a holiday - as our recent £960 for 10 full days in S Korea demonstrated (even more so if the destination itself is relatively "cheap"). That comment is only true for going East which seems particularly cheap ex Uk at the moment. Latin America is a very different story unfortunately -especially as we can't go via USA now being regarded as potential terrorists for having visited Iran!

I've been to every site in the continental US and Canada, so I've exhausted everything close to me (Minneapolis).

The closest would be the Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes, Mexico which is 2,066km away.

Next would be the El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, Mexico at 2,400 km.

Havana would be 3rd at 2,600km.

Quite a crater near my base (Luxembourg). Closest would be Canterbury (506km) and Holasovice (766km). Living in Malta would technically mean being a short flight away from all the North African countries and WHS but I'm not sure I'd be so keen to visit them for the time being.

I normally do extended weekend trips, i.e. I add Monday or Friday. For me right now, time (vacation days) is the constraint, so saving my holidays for the one big vacation I do each year is really a priority. I also have a quirk in my contract where I get individual extra days off for business travels, so doing a 3 day vacation doesn't really count as holiday. With Hamburg airport rather close to the city center (20min or so), I can leave work at 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and fly out as 5 p.m. (2h). Add 1h flight plus 1h commute and it's 4h, not too much.

On top, with all the cheap flight options available in Europe nowadays (Easyjet, Ryanair, ...) and being smart about booking flights (flexible schedule/destination, using google flights, combining with work trips) the flights aren't that much more expensive than a weekend trip by train to see my brother in Leipzig. Only for longer trips am I willing to pay more than 150€ back and forth.


I would place it in London Gatwick from where loads of Easyjet flights connect you to all over Europe.


Not that great a feat... Germany has the same amount of sites as those two combined ;)


Holasovice, Clyde, get in your car now and drive there. It's the best! LOL. Honestly, makes only sense to combine with Cesky Krumlov which is great. Holasovice is really underwhelming.

WHAT! Come on, really?

USA and Canada is far more impressive feat than all of Germany's WHS. The size difference geographically, logistics, cost, time are all massively more difficult. Some context, there are WHS on the North American continent that span more than 5,000 km from each other, Gibraltar to Moscow is less than 4,000 kilometers! Germany is smaller than Montana.

How long would it take a dedicated traveller to complete all 41 German WHS?

How long would it take a dedicated traveller to complete all 41 US/Canadian WHS?

Thoughts?

Indeed - I have just done a quick review of the "missing sites" for those with the highest visit counts and for a number of other "high rollers" who hail from the USA and it would seem that GaryArndt is (probably??) the only person in the Community to have visited all US/Canada mainland sites.

I suspect that the reason for this is a mixture of cost/difficulty (particularly for those not living in N America) and also the fact that so many of the sites are "Natural" which are not as "popular" generally with WH travellers as cultural sites. Having travelled from Europe or Asia (or even from California/NY!) it takes either a fair bit of "count obsession" or a love of wild places to make that trip up to Wood Buffalo or Nahanni for instance !!

winterkjm

You should take note of the smiley. I do understand that the distances involved make North Anerica pretty hard core. I still managed to see all of south Eastern Mexico in a month.

For Germany give or take 5 weeks max if properly planned. Only hickup is Bayreuth where last time I checked renovations are ongoing and access isn't possible.

I recognized the humorous tone, but I was still surprised! Don't get me wrong, completing all of Germany's WHS is fantastic, but I never even heard of someone completing all of North America.

I had been to all the German ones too, as of 2013. Just missing the brand new ones.

The only US site I haven't visited is Papahnaumokukea, which is pretty impossible to visit as of right now.

Here is my breakdown of all the US and Canadian WHS.

http://everything-everywhere.com/unesco-world-heritage-sites-in-canada/
http://everything-everywhere.com/unesco-world-heritage-sites-in-the-united-states-of- america/

I've been able to visit all the US/Canada ones because I'm a travel photographer/blogger and I've worked with many tourism boards to document their sites.

Lol, great approach :)

nfmungard

Lol. Actually I plan to drive there as the road conditions and remaining Czech WHS are quite interesting as a whole, but only because I intend to complete Czechi rather than solely tick off Holasovice and/or Cesky Krumlov!