Happy New Year! This past year was not as challenging for travel as 2020, but I still look forward to the day when travel restrictions can be eased worldwide. Despite the challenges of travel, I was able to visit eight World Heritage Sites in and around North America and the Caribbean in 2021, and to see three new countries. My total World Heritage Site count went up by 14 with the addition of six sites inscribed in the 2020-2021 World Heritage Site session. If the travel I have planned for 2022 works out, I'm hoping to visit at least 30 new sites and to get back to Europe and Africa and maybe the Pacific; if nothing else, at least I have plenty of places I'd like to explore in North America.

Hope the travel plans for everyone in this community work out for 2022!

Happy New Year to you all too!
2021 wasn't the best travel year for me either, mostly due to private circumstances that kept me close to NL.
I added only 26 new WHS to my tally, of which 15 came from the combined WHC session.
I did manage to visit 2 "new" states outside of Europe: the small but friendly countries of Costa Rica (enjoyed meeting you, vantcj1!) and Kyrgyzstan.
And I finished my 2020/2021 Covid-challenge: I have now visited all 21 national parks in the Netherlands.

For 2022, I hope it to be a whole different story. More about my plans in tomorrow's blog post...

Happy New Year everyone!!!
my travel wasn't the best year either but so much more as 2020 already. in 2021 still was away around 70 nights, visited 3 new countries (not much) and quite some 65 orso UNESCO sites plus some tentatives. My "luck" was that I haven't seen much in Europe in terms of UNESCO so this was ideal to go tick off.

For 2022, I plan 75-100 UNESCO sites and 10 new countries. I think this must be do-able as I have 4 plans for about a week in Europe which count to 40+ UNESCO already.

Happy New Year all.
Another year of no new site visits for me, but getting my daughters to the stage where they ask if they can visit Avebury as a treat should probably be regarded as a win.
Unlike last year 2022 starts with genuine travel plans, and hopefully it can deliver some some new WHS too.
Despite more than two years without travel this community (both here and on WhatsApp) are constant sources of joy, keep it up you good good people.

Happy New Year! Echoing the above, I found vicarious pleasure in everyone's reviews and updated my grandiose mental plans for future travel (albeit young children, the constraints of school holidays and a full-time job are probably just as much a crimp on plans as a pandemic). No plans beyond possibly revisiting some already-visited sites unless things improve dramatically by August but looking forward to reading more from those who have been out and about.
Safe travels all!

Not necessarily an impressive year in total, but I was very pleased with the natural world heritage sites that were added to my count in 2021.

Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California (Mexico)
Yellowstone National Park (United States)
Waterton Glacier International Peace Park (United States)
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (United States)
Getbol, Korea Tidal Flats (Republic of Korea) *added from WHC session

My first new WHS for 2022 will be Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park!

Not sure if this is the year, but hoping to explore new areas around the globe that I have never visited, such as West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria) and some of the Gulf States (UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman). These plans could easily change, but it's nice to dream big as a new year begins!

Safe travels Everyone!

Buon anno nuovo a tutti , happy new year to everybody!!! 🥳

As already said by others, for me, too, this year was surely better than the dreaded 2020, even if it still started late personally: around June, after vaccines came and the biggest blocks started lifting, at least in Italy and generally Europe. Once again (and, for one or another reason, third year in a row...) I unfortunately did not venture outside the Old Continent, even more so as my planned trip to Mongolia miserably ran aground: I already had flight tickets, but soon after I got them, with little advance, everything went crazy (travel restrictions on both sides, flight cancellations and not answering flag carrier offices, pandemic peaks...). Goals would have been the eastern part of the country with Дагуур/Dauria and other tentatives, and maybe the beloved Бурхан Xалдун/Burkhan Khaldun. So in the end I instead opted for one of the most peaceful and "easiest" destinations ever possible, Denmark (and Germany) at a snail-pace: vikings, cliffs and Hanse. I'm glad this eventually brought me the ad interim title of honorary Dane, bestowed by @elsslots herself! :-) At the end of the year I could also roam a bit in southwestern France. Anyway, no new countries this year. Overall I intensified local trips and went chasing some serious serial components (yes, lots of pile dwellings).

In numbers, I can add 4 sites by default through this year's session, then I should be able to count some new 37 WH places (i.e. single parts of sites), which however correspond to simply around 19 "totally new" WHSs; plus a handful of tentatives.
- Most exhilarating one: probably zooming around the Venetian countryside relentlessly chasing Palladian villas!
- Most underwhelming: Christiansfeld
- WHS-related highlight: revisiting Rome in a dreamy atmosphere amidst the European championship, finally putting to use a ticket purchased nearly two years before.
- Most eye-opening moment: reaching and touching (oooops) the fish-clay layer at Stevns klint, thanks to @hubert's advice!
- Most surprising (T)WHS: the aenigmatic Moler landscapes in Danmark. It may depend on the fact that everything aligned for a blissful experience with no prior expectations.

I really don't have set plans for this year yet. Who knows if Mongolia will finally click... I just know that I should be in Bulgaria for a conference at the end of March, and crossing fingers in Marseille at the end of June. However, one minor goal is local completism: to fulfill Italian pile dwellings (this will be mostly happen in the good season), Sacred Mounts and Langobard sites... and to write the ultimate reviews about them for the joy of everybody! :-P

And finally, I share similar feelings as @meltwaterfalls with regard to this community, seeing it as an invaluable source of inspiration and a unique place to share impressions and views. I'm happy to have joined the WhatsApp group and hope to not have been too annoying there! :-)

Happy travels in 2022 to everybody, in whichever form!

Happy New Year 2022 everyone! If I'm not mistaken I added 45 new WHS and some 17 new tWHS. 13 out of the 45 came from the WH conference.

Happy New Year. Didn't have a keyboard for a while :)

Let's see what 2022 has to offer. I have decided to get as vaccinated as possible and then no longer care, assuming I am allowed in.

My plans for 2022 are the usual potpourri and subject to change. My time in Turkey was fun. For summer, I would want to go to Iceland. For spring, maybe Israel (if they ever open again) and certainly Georgia. In addition, I have one work & travel trip to Portugal in my mind.

Generally, my Europe map is mostly exhausted. I will be looking at more distant trips for longer periods in comparison to the previous extended weekends/week trips going forward.

Hi everyone, have a really great happy new year with great travels!


Great, Els! It was also a great experience to meet you and to tour you around some areas of San José. I hope having helped you get a feeling of what the country has to offer, WHS-related or not.

As you all may know, I'm very far from being a prolific international traveler and my WHS interest has mostly been intelectually-driven. Lack of money, lack of time (in 2021 I started a master degree on urban design and planning, to add to that feature), lack of significant vacation time in the last 5 years has always deterred me from going abroad, so I always focused on traveling around the country (mostly through hikes, camping, etc.) and in that I've been quite succesful before COVID hit. Still, I have recently reached 336/489 districts fully visited, with their capital. By the way, I got in September my 2nd COVID vaccine shot and the 3rd is initially stated for March.

This lack of abroad traveling has recently started changing, as we had been discussing for some time a trip to Mexico (my partner has double nationality, CR and Mex), which finally came to fruition between December 20th (my birthday) and January 7th. The trip was not per se seen as a WHS-catching trip and due to my work and late semester at the Masters, I came very late to the equation as an organizer (when I was already in Mexico), but I still got to tick off 7 WHS and 2 TLWHS. which is of course a personal record to me. A great miss was not being able to get a spot at Casa Barragán (will try to get there at some other point, with greater previous involvement) and I could not financially accomplish to visit Morelos (so no Xochicalco or the 11 mission churches there), but the trip was really great on experiences, I took thousands of photos and had very rewarding visits to both WHS and non-WHS-places, in the city or nearby. Still, there are many places within Mexico city which I will reserve for next visits, as it is clearly a World-class destination.

So, having started this year doubling my count of WHS is really a great start. Personally I don't have plans now for the rest of the year, but something may came up at the end of the year, as for now I have still many pending places in Costa Rica to visit and I want to really restart hiking regularly.