OWHC Young Travelling Scholarship - Organization of World Heritage Cities

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About the scholarship

The Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC) with its Regional Secretariat for Northwest Europe and North America organizes also in 2025 a travel scholarship for young people. Equipped with a budget of now even 1.500 €, the winners of the scholarship program have the opportunity to discover World Heritage Cities and experience why our UNESCO World Heritage needs to be preserved.

This project is aimed at young people from ages 18 to 28 in order to make Europe’s and North America’s World Heritage a more tangible experience for the younger generation. Each single traveler or team has to visit at least three different cities listed as World Heritage in at least two different countries, and relate their personal impressions and encounters to UNESCO World Heritage. Otherwise, they are completely independent at planning their own trip.

The Travellers share their experience on a blog and keep everyone updated on social media (Instagram etc.) as they are discovering different World Heritage Cities. At the end of their trips they design a creative output (photographs, videos etc.) of their travels. The project intends to share World Heritage from different perspectives. Applications are taken from all over the world in order to represent different views on several heritage sites. We encourage all our OWHC cities to promote this wonderful oportunity and support the project.

Please find all details and direct application form on our updated specific website under www.owhc-youngtravelling.com

You can find a summary of our past editions with a presentation of our travellers, their routes and outputs below – enjoy!

Ready for takeoff: Meet the six travelling teams of our 2025 scholarship!

Once again, we were thrilled to receive lots of wonderful and creative applications from different regions. After a hard selection process, we are now happy to annouce our winners: Three travellers and three travelling teams representing a variety of interests, backgrounds and creative ambitions will start their journeys to various destinations at the end of July. We wish them good luck and a great time exploring our World Heritage Cities!

Get to know our travellers, learn about their perspectives on heritage and discover a variety of travel routes and creative travel output ideas!

Mareike Herold

Mareike (28) is an emerging heritage professional working at a heritage consultancy in Germany. With a background in Leisure and Tourism Management and a Master’s degree in World Heritage Studies, she is passionate about the intersection of natural and cultural heritage. Her work and interests focus on how heritage can serve as a living resource that supports urban transformation, resilience, and community participation.

For her OWHC travel, she will explore how selected World Heritage Cities implement the Historic Urban Landscape approach to embed identity and inclusive practices in their urban development. This journey offers her the opportunity to merge her academic interests with her love of travel, storytelling, and heritage.

Travel Route:

Amsterdam – Brugge – Le Havre – Edinburgh

Social Media:

Instagram: @mareike_herold

Travel Output:

Inspired by her tradition of sending postcards to her grandmother from every city she visits, Mareike will create a series of “Heritage Stamps.” These miniature visuals will capture each city’s unique atmosphere, urban challenges, and local narratives. The stamps will be featured in a creative travel journal, accompanied by her reflections on HUL principles, the city’s sustainability strategies, and her lived travel experience.

Sophie Laurette

Sophie Laurette is a 21-year old student in European Cultures with french-german backgrounds. She loves to read, likes to learn new languages, and either write, run, travel or plays music in her free-time. She used to work in a movie theater and is now working as a volunteer for cultural and ecological associations.

Fascinated by words, sounds and colors, her travel route follows the footsteps of great artists that captured the spirit of nature, stories, beliefs and traditions. She is looking forward to share a new vision on the work, the influence and the reception of writers, composers and painters as part of our cultural, historical and human heritage.

Travel Route:

Luxembourg – Brussels – Nuremberg – Prague – Salzburg – Strasbourg

Social Media:

Instagram: @sophie.lrte

Travel Output:

Sophie will document her travels through a collection of poems based on her experience : cultural discoveries, landscapes, encounters, and so on.

Reeva Sheth & Ayushi Chaudhary

Reeva:

Reeva Sheth is a 19-year-old American student of Indian descent. She is an incoming junior at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, pursuing a double major in Finance and Entrepreneurship & Innovation as part of the University’s Honors Program. Her academic and professional interests center around strategy consulting. This summer, she is interning at the Global Interdependence Center, which contributes to research across several areas with a focus on global economics and policy. She is also working as a Sales Enablement Intern at Suitable, a student engagement platform.

Ayushi:

Ayushi Chaudhary is a 20-year-old American student of Nepali descent studying International Business with a Finance concentration and a minor in Management Information Systems at Temple University, where she is part of the Honors Program. Her academic and professional focus is on economic diplomacy, global trade, and cultural policy. She studied abroad in Rome and is preparing for a year-long program in Tokyo with Temple University Japan. In May 2025, she attended the Global Student Leadership Council in Medellín, Colombia, after publishing a Proposal for a Global Cybersecurity Alliance. She also interns at the U.S. Commercial Service, supporting global trade research and commercial diplomacy efforts.

Travel Route:

Philadelphia – Split – Dubrovnik – Mostar

Social Media:

Instagram: @aroundtheglobe444

Travel Output:

We plan to create a scrapbook documenting our journey through Split, Dubrovnik, and Mostar, capturing daily moments with photos and reflections. Alongside this, we will make vlogs featuring our experiences and behind-the-scenes travel footage, to share diverse perspectives on each World Heritage site.

Leon Dresel

Leon Dresel is a 24-year-old engineering student from Regensburg, Germany with a passion for photography, especially in more experimental forms. After completing his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, he began a Master’s in Research in Engineering Sciences, supplemented by academic stays in South Korea and Sweden.

He modified his camera to also capture infrared light, and thereby reveal new aspects of familiar scenes.

Travel Route:

Regensburg – Bamberg – Augsburg – Québec – Malta

Social Media:

Instagram: @leon.d1102

Travel Output:

For his OWHC journey, Leon plans to create a photo album combining infrared and visual spectrum photography, along with macro detail shots, to present the World Heritage sites he visits from entirely new perspectives and highlight details that usually stay hidden from the eye.

Melanie Angermüller & Sophia Kuffner

We are Sophia and Melanie, two 22-year-old students of International Relations and Management at OTH Regensburg. Thanks to our studies, we’ve found ourselves in the heart of one of the most beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Cities! Our internationally oriented degree program, a year abroad each, and a shared journey through Eastern Europe have deepened our passion for cultural exchange and living history.

Travel Route:

Regensburg – Berlin – Stralsund – Wismar – Hamburg – Copenhagen – Oslo – Bergen

Travel Output:

Heritage in Motion – A Series of Cultural Cuts through Europe’s World Heritage Cities
With Heritage in Motion, we aim to explore Europe’s UNESCO World Heritage Cities through a creative, personal lens. Our project focuses on capturing cultural atmosphere, urban movement, and meaningful encounters. Not by listing tourist hotspots, but by observing the details that give each city its unique rhythm.

Armed with cameras and curiosity, we will collect short, aesthetic video fragments in each city. From quiet street scenes and architectural textures to small interactions and spontaneous moments of local life. These “cultural cuts” will form a short movie as our final output. Apart from that, we will share a series of short-form video pieces and photos via Instagram and blog posts throughout our journey.

Our goal is not to present a polished travel documentary but to create an authentic and approachable mosaic of everyday heritage; moving images that invite reflection, not just reaction. We want to experiment with slow visuals, minimal editing, ambient sound, and written fragments to show how heritage is not only what is preserved in buildings, but what is felt in motion, exchange, and perspective.

Frieda Arz & Moritz Lechte

We are Frieda (25) and Moritz (25), currently pursuing our Master’s degree in “Digital Monument Heritage Technologies” in Bamberg, Germany. For both of us, this is a follow-up degree: Frieda completed her Bachelor’s in Interior Architecture, and Moritz holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture. We are passionate about the preservation and contemporary (re)use of building fabric. For us this also includes seeking inspiration abroad and learning from international examples.

Our shared love of traveling will take us on a road trip in early October 2025, just before the start of the winter semester. Starting from Bamberg, we plan to visit eight OWHC member cities across the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany. With this journey, we hope to raise awareness about the importance of preserving cultural heritage, discover new perspectives, gather inspiration, and also spotlight a few lesser-known but fascinating places.