The Quests | Visiting Every UNESCO World Heritage Site in the World

While I do have many quests going on at the moment, this will likely be the longest quest I ever partake in. I started this a few years ago as inspiration to visit countries in-depth rather just enter for a couple of days. Although I could likely finish this quest in ten years if I focused on it, I’m not one to let a quest get in the way of my passion for travel. For example, Myanmar had no UNESCO sites when I visited but the country was calling me. Rather than visit a country with many UNESCO sites, I went there and loved every minute of it. Therefore, my goal is to visit every UNESCO site in the world before the age of 65. I figure it’s one hell of an achievement before the common age of retirement.

How many UNESCO sites are there?

I get asked this question quite often. The answer: a lot! It doesn’t help that UNESCO keeps adding properties to the list, although it’s always good that more sites become protected.

There are currently 1007 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. You can view them all by clicking here.

I have currently been to:

AUSTRALIA

• Great Barrier Reef
• Gondwana Rainforests of Australia
• Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
• Wet Tropics of Queensland
• Fraser Island
• Sydney Opera House
• Australian Convict Sites

NEW ZEALAND

• Tongariro National Park

INDONESIA

• Borobudur Temple Compounds
• Komodo National Park
• Prambanan Temple Compounds
• Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy

MALAYSIA

• Kinabalu Park
• Melaka and George Town, Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca

PHILIPPINES

• Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras
• Baroque Churches of the Philippines

THAILAND

• Historic City of Ayutthaya

LAOS

• Town of Luang Prabang

CAMBODIA

• Angkor
• Temple of Preah Vihear

CHINA

• Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang
• The Great Wall
• Mount Huangshan
• Ancient City of Ping Yao
• Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing
• Temple of Heaven: an Imperial Sacrificial Altar in Beijing
• Historic Centre of Macao
• The Lijiang River Scenic Zone at Guilin (tentative)

JAPAN

• Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities)
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome)
• Itsukushima Shinto Shrine
• Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration
• Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara
• Himeji-jo
• Shrines and Temples of Nikko

DENMARK

• Roskilde Cathedral

MEXICO

• Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimilco
• Historic Centre of Puebla
• Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan
• Historic Town of Guanajuato and Adjacent Mines
• Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza
• Historic Centre of Morelia
• Earliest 16th-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl
• Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

USA

• Yellowstone National Park
• Redwood National and State Parks
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Statue of Liberty
• Yosemite National Park
• Waterton Glacier International Peace Park

CANADA

• Dinosaur Provincial Park
• Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
• Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
• Historic District of Old Québec
• Gros Morne National Park
• Old Town Lunenburg
• Waterton Glacier International Peace Park
• Rideau Canal

COSTA RICA

• Area de Conservación Guanacaste

COLOMBIA

• Port, Fortresses and Group of Monuments, Cartagena
• Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia

PERU

• City of Cuzco
• Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu
• Chan Chan Archaeological Zone
• Historic Centre of Lima
• Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Pampas de Jumana

BOLIVIA

• City of Potosí

ECUADOR

• Historic Centre of Santa Ana de los Ríos de Cuenca
• City of Quito
• Galápagos Islands

UGANDA

• Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

• Kilimanjaro National Park
• Serengeti National Park
• Ngorongoro Conservation Area
• Stone Town of Zanzibar

ETHIOPIA

• Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar Region
• Harar Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town
• Rock-Hewn Churches, Lalibela
• Simien National Park

NETHERlANDS

• Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Amsterdam inside the Singelgracht

GERMANY

• Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin
• Museumsinsel (Museum Island), Berlin

CZECH REPUBLIC

• Historic Centre of Český Krumlov
• Historic Centre of Prague

ITALY

• Venice and its Lagoon
• Historic Centre of Florence
• Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)
• Piazza del Duomo, Pisa
• Historic Centre of Siena
• Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura

TURKEY

• Historic Areas of Istanbul
• Ephesus
• Hierapolis-Pamukkale
• Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia

NEPAL

• Kathmandu Valley
• Chitwan National Park

INDIA

• Red Fort Complex
• Taj Mahal
• The Jantar Mantar, Jaipur
• Hill Forts of Rajasthan

DUBAI

• Khor Dubai

PALAU

• Rock Islands Southern Lagoon

SOUTH KOREA

• Changdeokgung Palace Complex

 

My total count as of now: 102 / 1007.

A lot more to go.

Read about my other quests here:

• Scuba diving every continent on Earth
• Creating $100,000 per year with my own business