Meet the American couple on a mission to visit every UNESCO World Heritage site. They’ve ticked off 114 and here they reveal the best and worst so far, and the places that surprised them…

It’s a bucket list like no other: all 1,223 UNESCO World Heritage sites.

And American couple Haley Crowley and Zachary Fisher are determined to visit them all.

The couple has visited 114 locations so far and has documented their travels on their website. @haleyandzach_ TikTok account, where they now have more than 80,000 followers.

They tell MailOnline Travel about the highlights and lowlights of their trip, including the best and worst places and the places that surprised them.

Haley and Zach’s ‘Unesco hunt’ has taken them to 58 countries, from Montenegro and Myanmar to Chile, Cambodia and China. They said, ‘It forces us to really explore a country and has led us to some crazy experiences in turn.’

Haley Crowley and Zachary Fisher are on a “lifelong quest” to visit every UNESCO World Heritage Site. The pair have visited 114 locations so far and document their travels on their @haleyandzach_ TikTok account. The couple is pictured above in Torun, Poland

The couple’s ‘Unesco hunt’ has taken them to 58 countries, from Montenegro and Myanmar to Chile, Cambodia and China. One of their favourite places is the Great Wall of China (above)

Haley is pictured on the left at the Great Wall of China, which the couple described as “incredible.” The couple is pictured on the right as they slide down the Great Wall on the Mutianyu toboggan run

Number one on the couple’s long list is the Great Wall of China, perhaps the country’s most iconic monument. Built during the Ming Dynasty, the wall is over 20,000 kilometres long.

The couple said: ‘You hear about the wall, how big it is, how far it stretches, but to see it twisting and winding through the mountains as far as the eye can see. It’s just incredible.’

Another special place for the couple is Old Bagan, an ancient city in the Mandalay region of Myanmar. This city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom from the 9th to the 13th century.

The city was once home to over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries at its peak. Today, ruins of over 2,000 temples and pagodas remain.

The couple said: ‘Because of the civil war in Myanmar, we were among the few tourists and often had these incredible places all to ourselves.’

Some “honorable mentions,” the couple said, include Angkor Wat, a Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia; Machu Picchu in Peru; and the Plain of Jars in Laos, an archaeological landscape known for its thousands of large stone jars.

A notable site for the couple is Old Bagan, an ancient city in the Mandalay region of Myanmar that served as the capital of the Pagan Kingdom

The couple said: ‘Because of the civil war in Myanmar we were among the few tourists and often had the most amazing places all to ourselves.’ They are pictured left with a local in Old Bagan.

Haley is pictured above at the Plain of Jars in Laos, an archaeological landscape known for its thousands of large stone jars

Attention was also paid to Upper Svaneti, a region in the mountainous area of ​​Georgia known for its well-preserved medieval villages.

While Haley and Zach’s search has led them to many special places, they noted, “Some places are much better preserved or restored than others.”

One of their least favorite places is the Chinchorro mummies in Arica, northern Chile. They are the oldest examples of artificially mummified human remains, buried up to 2,000 years before the Egyptian mummies. They said, ‘It’s interesting, but how does it compare to Machu Picchu?’

Another site that failed to live up to expectations is Tiwanaku, a pre-Columbian civilization that existed between 300 and 1100 AD.

The city, located in present-day Bolivia near Lake Titicaca, was one of the most important Andean civilizations. It now contains several ruins, including the Akapana pyramid and the Kalasasaya temple, but according to Haley and Zach, “There’s not much left to see.”

The couple were also surprised by several locations, including The Sewell Mining Town, which is located 2,200 meters above sea level in the Andes and overlooks the world’s largest underground copper mine, El Teniente.

Tiwanaku (above), a pre-Columbian civilization that existed between 300 and 1100 AD, didn’t live up to the couple’s expectations. They said, “There’s not much left to see.”

The couple named the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia as one of their favorite UNESCO sites. Hayley is pictured above on the site

They said, “The effort and energy that went into building this city so high in the Andes made a deep impression on us.”

Kotor, a fortified city on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, also blew them away, describing it as “incredibly beautiful” and claiming in a TikTok video that it had “the best views in Montenegro.”

Haley and Zach have been traveling the world full-time since 2022, funding their “massive trip” with their savings. They said: “We both got jobs right out of college and have been saving a lot.

“We are starting to make some money through social media, but it is still a very small amount.”

Their daily routines typically involve multiple bus rides, hitchhiking or lots of walking to reach a UNESCO site or a nearby town.

They said: ‘The more remote places are often not so easy to get to and that makes planning difficult. A lot of ‘planning’ requires talking to locals as information is not always readily available online.’

They travel on a budget and stay in hostels, guesthouses or couchsurfing, usually booking these accommodations a few hours before arriving in the city.

The couple has been surprised by several locations, including The Sewell Mining Town, which is located 2,200 meters above sea level in the Andes (above)

The couple described Kotor, a fortified town on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, as “incredibly beautiful”

Haley is pictured on the left in Upper Svaneti, a region in Georgia’s mountainous region known for its well-preserved medieval villages. Zach is pictured on the right exploring the Bay of Kotor

Although moving frequently can be “exhausting,” the couple say, “We love this kind of travel, and even if something goes wrong, we always laugh about it later.”

What did they enjoy most about the trip? “All the people we met along the way,” the couple said.

‘We were helped by complete strangers who gave us a lift when we were in the middle of nowhere, who fed us and offered us a place to stay for the night, just because we were in their town and wanted to get to know us.’

Unesco sites are monuments and areas protected and recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for their cultural-historical or scientific value.

Countries that have signed the World Heritage Convention can submit proposals for sites they want to see recognized. The list is updated every year.