According to the list on The Best Travelled Website, Frank W. Grosse-Oetringhaus has seen the most WHS overall (940), when you combine it with our Community List.

Just today I stumbled upon his website, where he explains his approach on travel .
Slide 49 and 50 zoom in on travelling to WHS, and 62-63 on involvement with UNESCO.

Although I am quite a planner myself, I think he's suffering from a serious case of travel obsessive–compulsive disorder. I do like his honesty though, he has spent 1.8 million EUR over the past 10 years getting where he is at now.

I think the 558 + visited TWHS is astounding.

By the way, there is another traveller Bill Altaffer who claims to visit even more, i.e. 961 WHS. Although some travellers exaggerate their achievements, in this case the number is likely to be true.

Frank is indeed travelling non-stop for many years and is self-proclaimed the best travelled person in the world (that statement caused a lot of confusion, to say the least, amongst some other big travellers). But he truly collects WHS and one day will pass 1000 mark, especially that he still has a few easy European ones unvisited.

I am not sure but the amount of 1.8m EUR should include two people, Frank and his partner.

It is for 2 persons indeed, he said so.

Still it's a LOT of money! Considering his age though and that most of his achievements were achieved in the last 10 years, he should easily be able to visit all remaining WHS with a year's budget! Nonetheless, quite a retirement plan indeed!

A rough guess from my side is that all my travels as an adult (so including 632 WHS) have cost me 300,000 EUR

That PowerPoint is quite the document and resource, thank you for sharing Els. I will need to dedicate the time to view the document more thoroughly. I thought 1052 sites was a lot, 5000 is amazing! If you add all current WHS + TWHS you only have a mere 2756 sites. My approach is while the WHS list may not be comprehensive, its constant revisions and additions as well as the approval from many global counties help to make the list robust. I wish Frank the best of luck in his travels, he seems to have quite the ambition and desire to get the most out of his life.

Clicked through the presentation and wasn't quite sure what to make out of it. As a resource only of limited value. Seems more a testimonial / justification for his mode of travel.

To be honest, it's quite different from my mode of travel:
* For starters, I can't burn through 10k a day for tripping around Antarctica nor would I want to.
* I really enjoy doing all my bookings on my own. I don't use travel agents or guides.
* I am not searching for the best all of the time. E.g. I wouldn't want the best hotel room, the best view, the best ...
* Hotel rooms are sunk cost for me. I want my own room with my own bathroom, quiet and clean. But seeing I will only be spending 9h in it, I see no point in paying extra.

But well, chacun a sa facon. And even if it would ruin Iain's first place, would be nice to have him set up his map here. I do think our map feature nowadays isn't that much worse than then TBT one.

I do agree with you on this one. What I dislike about his approach is that all spontaneity & sense of discovery has been replaced by an efficient process at high cost.

elsslots: efficient process at high cost.

Efficient at a high cost... You are right, it's a bit contradictory. I have to plan well because I have a limited budget. If I could just throw money at it, were not constrained by work and limited vacation days, I would travel way differently and less efficiently. ;)

That is quite an interesting document, and whilst ostensibly we share similar goals it feels somewhat alien to me.

I guess I just don't have the time, resources or inclination to travel as a life, rather I enjoy travelling for what it brings to my everyday life.

Though it is quite interesting to read it as a sort of Avant-Garde abstract love story, just told through the medium of a PowerPoint presentation rather than the more standard prose.

I think in this case it's more of an expensive retirement plan (dream coming true) and since he has the time and no physical and financial constraints, he seems to be covering what he couldn't/didn't do in the previous 65 years of his "work life".