Using UNESCO World Heritage list for itinerary planning

The thought would never have occurred to me. Now that you bring it up, I can't say the idea sounds great to me. Too few places and just how they come to be on it is rather fuzzy in my mind.

I generally know where I want to go without having to consult anything. I might consult a guidebook after deciding to go somewhere to see if it contains anything I am not aware of and might be interested in.

I'd say the only branch your post might make sense on is here on the RTW branch. Lot's of young people here with no idea why they are going anywhere other than because everyone esle is.

As a shortcut way to working out an itinerary, i would say its not a bad idea. But as you have sort of shown yourself, its not a foolproof way to travel.

I was just 3 months travelling in India and saw a few world heritage sites. In general the quality of ruins was better than some of the others that were not on the list. However, the ruins were not the highlight of my trip, although I am glad i included them in my itinerary.

So in the end, i would say its worth visiting the world heritage sights that are around where you plan to be but don't limit your trip to these sights. Widen your research.

The UNESCO world heritage list is driven to a certain extent by politics, resulting in some bizarre choices. In the US, the natural sites on the list are pretty much the greatest hits of the national park system (though they're missing the Utah sites for some reason). But the cultural sites they list are, um, very peculiar. If you planned your trip to the US around visits to the Cahokia Mounds and the Chaco Culture National Park, and the only cities you visit here are Philadelphia, Charlottesville, Taos, and San Juan (Puerto Rico), you kind of haven't seen American culture. Cahokia, in particular, shouldn't make your list, unless you're really a big fan of pre-history or archeology. The Cahokia mounds are, after all, just big hillocks. Man-made hillocks, sure, and very old, but you shouldn't go to metropolitan St. Louis just for that, and they aren't even on the top ten things to do in that area.

To an American the political agenda here is obvious; it's an acknowledgment of our diversity, or less unfairly, it's an attempt to preserve and acknowledge what early history we have. But our world heritage list is not even a fair approximation of a guidebook.

--M.

The UNESCO list is very subjective. I would never use it to dictate my itinerary.