For some, it’s the ultimate travel bucket list. Here’s why you can’t trust it

No offence to Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden, which I’m sure is a worthy site for those fascinated by early wireless technology. But for the rest of us, it’s just a large pylon, shed and huge transmitter, which the radio station’s website gamely describes as having “an unparalleled wow factor”.

But I reckon the wow factor can be paralleled – in fact amply exceeded – by Spain’s incomparable Alhambra palace and gardens complex, or the spine-tingling Taj Mahal in India. Yet the three sites do have something in common: they’re all UNESCO World Heritage listed.

So too is Ciudad Universitaria, a Mexican university campus notable for Brutalist architecture, a lumpen concrete style that seldom excites tourists. It’s far outshone by Mexico’s pyramids and baroque cathedrals, whose interiors cascade with looted Spanish gold.

A Dutch pumping station is World Heritage-listed too. So is a meatpacking plant in Uruguay, a Berlin housing estate, and our own Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, hardly an international attraction of marvellous wonder.

Of course, all these places are significant, and might provide education and delight to travellers with esoteric interests. For all I know, you’re thrilled by dry-walled settlements, or turned on by early industrial lifts – and good for you.

The point is, however, that not all World Heritage sites are great monuments or outstanding natural landscapes. The designation doesn’t indicate anything about first-class sightseeing.

There are many reasons sites don’t make the list, and many sites that don’t even bother trying.

But who realises that? Most tourists assume that, if a site is World Heritage-listed, then it must not only be worth seeing, but particularly spectacular.

That isn’t the case for the majority of places on the list. We’re all dazzled by big World Heritage sites such as Iguazu Falls, the Forbidden City and Pyramids of Giza, but many more are barely blips on the tourist radar.

In fact, the majority of World Heritage sites provide no wow factor at all for the regular, unspecialised sightseer looking to be impressed by a beautiful cultural or natural sight.

An obvious example? Five World Heritage fossil sites that, while they yield wonderful finds for scientists, are merely worn-down plains or cliffs as far as dismayed tourists are concerned.

Even well-known places can be disappointing. Stonehenge in England – sorry – is just a few upright rocks in a field. In terms of tourist excitement, it can’t match the equally World Heritage-listed Great Wall of China or America’s Grand Canyon.

What, then, is World Heritage really about? Well, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was set up after World War II with the aim of promoting peace through international cooperation, which sounds like something a Miss Universe contestant might espouse.

Its aims are education, cultural exchange and the preservation of heritage sites of “outstanding universal value”. That’s not the same as tourism value. In fact, when the first World Heritage sites were inscribed in 1972, tourism was noted for its negative impact on fragile historical places.

Such lofty aims became increasingly diluted as political and economic interests took over. Many World Heritage sites were added because the prestigious marque brought recognition and, as a result, tourism dollars. Yet, once again, this doesn’t always equate to a five-star sightseeing experience.

In short, bustle off to your nearest World Heritage site and you aren’t guaranteed a spectacle. Nor should you assume that, if something isn’t on the list, it’s somehow inferior.

Activists for some sites, such as Vlkolinec village in Slovenia and Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania, are even trying to get them delisted, citing the impacts of “museumification” and overtourism on local community life.

There are many reasons sites don’t make the list, and many sites that don’t even bother trying. Hampton Court Palace outside London, one of the UK’s top heritage sites, goes without the accolade. Liverpool was recently delisted, yet will provide you with the same tourism experience as ever.

Also not listed? Wonderful places such as the gold-glittering Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar, the walled town of Medina in Malta, and the strikingly unusual Chocolate Hills in the Philippines.

Listings are notoriously skewed in favour of Europe and North America. Of the current 1199 World Heritage sites, 59 are in Italy and 52 each in France and Germany. The whole of Africa has only 103.

Does that mean there are more worthy places in Italy than anywhere else? No. It means Italy is more active at getting destinations listed than any other country. Or it means UNESCO is culturally biased. But that’s another whole opinion piece.

If you have an inquisitive magpie mind, which many travellers do, then the World Heritage brand won’t let you down. You can always learn something from prehistoric pile dwellings, a geodetic arc, or an abandoned whaling station.

But if you’re after the wow factor, you’d best be wary. World Heritage isn’t designed for the ordinary tourist, so don’t make it your go-to guide to the world’s greatest hits.