atlas obscura book review

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Atlas Obscura: A Book Review

March 13, 2017 By Thither Staff Leave a Comment

Like with many good things, I had first heard about Atlas Obscura through a podcast.

Atlas Obscura is a 470-page bible (including the index) of weird and obscure places, “an explorer’s guide to the world’s hidden wonders”. The book features sites from all around the world on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

The bestselling book is based on the website AtlasObscura.com , which like the book, focuses on shining a light on unique places. The site claims to be “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places”.

A few among the thousands of featured spots are the Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand, the Last Incan Grass Bridge in Peru, and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. The overarching purpose of the book is to make adventurous travelers and explorers aware of the amazing, bizarre, untouched and at times non-touristy sites around the world and in their own backyard.

• Beautifully designed hardcover book
• Full of useful information and locations that are not touristy or normal, yet still possible to visit
• 470-pages long, and filled with pictures and maps
• Makes for a great travel gift or coffee table book

Atlas Obscura is a book that will make you want to explore the world and the places around you. After browsing through the sections for countries I had already visited, I realized how many things I didn’t see. For almost all of the countries, I couldn’t help but think “ I have to go back and do that “.

• Much of the information within the book can be found on their website, AtlasObscura.com
• Since so many parts of the world are covered, the information for each individual city does not have much depth.

To be honest, I was slightly disappointed by the book’s section on New York City. As a local New Yorker, I expected to find truly ‘out there’ places. In reality, they weren’t that ‘hidden’ and I had been to most of them. Maybe I’m just jaded.

Additionally, the entire world is covered in this book, so there isn’t much depth for each individual location. It would be great if Atlas Obscura published more in-depth guides for individual states or cities.

This isn’t necessarily a pro or a con, but I believe it’s important for me to point out: Many of the locations listed in Atlas Obscura aren’t very obscure. For example, in the book’s short section on New Zealand, travelers are recommend to visit  Hobbiton  (the site in New Zealand where some scenes from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were shot, which is now a tourist attraction and hobbit-themed world) and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves (a really interesting cave with glowworms where you can go tubing and rafting).

Those are both great attractions which I have personally visited, however they are featured on pretty much every guidebook and blog on New Zealand. Compared to the Eiffel tower, they are obscure sites, but by New Zealand standards, those two places are some of the biggest must-do things.

The Verdict

Atlas Obscura is a fun and beautifully designed book, perfect for adventures and eventual-adventurers. It sheds a light on places not normally featured in travel guidebooks. The book isn’t without it’s flaws, though, since much of the information within it can be found for free on the Atlas Obscura website and each individual destination does not have much information. Regardless, Atlas Obscura  a fascinating book to read or just flip through and deserves a spot on your coffee table.

Where To Get Atlas Obscura

• You can find Atlas Obscura on Amazon.com for around $20

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• Book Review

Atlas Obscura’s new book is an off-the-beaten-path travel guide to the entire world

By Andrew Liptak

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Since 2009, Atlas Obscura has been one of my favorite internet rabbit holes. I sometimes spend hours on the site, which collects curiosities from across the globe, bouncing from enchanted forests to Russian space-age monuments . Now, the site’s founders have turned their website’s broad array of knowledge into a book that compiles some of their best finds.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders, written by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton isn’t a traditional travel guide. You won’t find popular sites like the Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge, or the Great Wall of China in its pages. Instead, you’ll learn about the Pyramids of Meroë, American Stonehenge, and Mount Roraima. It’s like traveling with a local, rather than relying on the top-voted spots on TripAdvisor.

This book covers the entire world: split into sections by each continent and then country, each country gets a handful of entries. Some are expanded entries that go a bit more in-depth on individual locations, such as Ireland’s Ruins of the MV Plassey or China’s Unit 731 Museum. Other entries are bite-sized paragraphs, like a blurb on Australia’s Boab Prison Tree or Alaska’s Adak National Forest. Each entry also includes some details about how to visit, as well as coordinates.

As I read through this book, I was struck by one particular epiphany: there’s so much more of the world to see. Sure, the familiar pyramids and ancient ruins posterized by travel agents are important stops, but there is so much more to the world than what you can see on a postcard. This is a book that goes off the well-traveled path, and actively encourages its readers to explore the world, rather than travel it.

There are two drawbacks here: because of its large size, this is probably not a great thing to pack up in your luggage (unless you get the eBook version). Second, any type of book that’s written from a huge website is going to be constrained by the number of pages you can bind together. The website has a considerable amount of additional information on it, and you’ll probably find yourself reaching for your phone or computer to do some follow-up research as you flip through the pages.

When I was growing up, my parents had books such as National Geographic’s Picture Atlas of Our World, Images of the Civil War , and The Unexplained , which I spent hours as a child poring over. Atlas Obscura is a perfect modern follow-up to the format, and it’s certainly going on the lowest shelf of my bookshelf for my own son to borrow.

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Atlas Obscura

An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton | 4.47 | 6,507 ratings and reviews

Ranked #1 in New Zealand Travel Guides , Ranked #2 in Atlas — see more rankings .

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Atlas Obscura from the world's leading experts.

Adam Savage Atlas Obscura. Go to the site. Buy the book. Seriously great content. My favorite way to travel (this endorsement based only in love) @atlasobscura https://t.co/zLMm126yXD (Source)

David Plotz I'm here to solve your holiday gift buying problems! Today we release the Second Edition of the No. 1 bestselling Atlas Obscura book, with 100 new wondrous places, 12 city guides, a foldout map. It's gorgeous and fun and an amazing gift. https://t.co/ids7kNjImW https://t.co/95ULoJOKJg (Source)

Rankings by Category

Atlas Obscura is ranked in the following categories:

• #72 in Exploration
• #20 in Geography
• #81 in Reference
• #24 in Travel
• #39 in Wanderlust

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Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders Hardcover – Sept. 20 2016

There is a newer edition of this item:.

• Part of series Atlas Obscura
• Print length 480 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Workman Publishing Company
• Publication date Sept. 20 2016
• Dimensions 26.67 x 17.78 x 4.83 cm
• ISBN-10 0761169083
• ISBN-13 978-0761169086
• See all details

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Product description, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company (Sept. 20 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0761169083
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0761169086
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 1.46 kg
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 26.67 x 17.78 x 4.83 cm
• #202 in Travel Reference Books
• #240 in Curiosities & Wonders (Books)
• #1,054 in Spanish-Language Reference

About the authors

Joshua foer.

Joshua Foer has written for National Geographic, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate.

Dylan Thuras

"Dylan Thuras is the co-founder of Atlas Obscura, a multimedia company and “Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders” visited by over 5 million monthly users, and co-author of NY Times #1 best seller Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders. He is the author of the forthcoming 2018 kids book “The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid.”

Dylan has spoken at conferences including SXSW, and the New Yorker Festival about discovery, wonder, and changing nature of travel. Dylan lives in Rosendale, NY with his wife Michelle, his three year old son Phineas, and the brand new addition to the household, his daughter Jean. When not traveling, changing diapers or sleeping, Dylan enjoys drawing, science fiction, and general nerdery.

Ella Morton

Ella Morton is a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised, Brooklyn-based writer, focusing on overlooked aspects of history and culture. After covering consumer technology at CNET she hosted Rocketboom NYC, a web show about New York’s quirkier people and places. Her most popular interview was a chat with Cookie Monster on the set of Sesame Street.

Ella is now Senior Editor at Atlas Obscura, where she has written about such topics as tobacco smoke enemas, Victorian streaming music services, and the etiquette of marrying a ghost.

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Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

Description.

It's time to get off the beaten path. Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura celebrates over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world.

Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.

Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, ATLAS OBSCURA revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere, and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer.

Anyone can be a tourist. ATLAS OBSCURA is for the explorer.

About the Author

Joshua Foer is the cofounder and chairman of Atlas Obscura. He is also the author of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, a bestseller published in 33 languages, and a forthcoming book about the world's last hunter-gatherers.

Dylan Thuras is the cofounder and creative director of Atlas Obscura. He lives in Rosendale, NY.

Ella Morton is a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised, Brooklyn-based writer, focusing on overlooked aspects of history and culture. After covering consumer technology at CNET she hosted Rocketboom NYC, a web show about New York’s quirkier people and places. Her most popular interview was a chat with Cookie Monster on the set of Sesame Street. Ella was associate editor at AtlasObscura.com, where she wrote about such topics as tobacco smoke enemas, Victorian streaming music services, and the etiquette of marrying a ghost.

Praise for Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

“A wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper” —The New York Times

“Fair warning: It's addictive.” —NPR, “Cosmos & Culture”

“In this gorgeous collection, the celebrated Atlas Obscura website is condensed into 480 pages of awe-inspiring destinations. For lovers of history and exploration, the striking color photographs will spark immediate wanderlust.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Odds are you won’t get past three pages without being amazed at something truly strange that you didn’t know existed.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Richly illustrated, delightfully strange, this compendium of off-beat destinations should spark many adventures, both terrestrial and imaginary.” —Boston Globe

“This book is PACKED with wonderful, amazing, fascinating places all around the world. This is the perfect gift for the person who thinks they’ve done it all and seen it all because this shows that there’s so much more in the world to explore. It’s a wonderful, wonderful coffee table book.” —NBC, “TODAY”

“A perfect tome for the armchair explorer and the actual traveler alike.” —Austin American Statesman

“The most addictive book of the year.” —Colin McEnroe, WNPR

“Whether describing a Canadian museum that showcases world history through shoes, a pet-casket company that will also sell you a unit for your severed limb, a Greek snake festival, or a place in the Canary Islands where inhabitants communicate through whistling, the authors have compiled an enthralling range of oddities. Featuring full-color illustrations, this hefty and gorgeously produced tome will be eagerly pored over by readers of many ages and fans of the original website.”—Booklist (Starred Review)

“If this compendium of the weirdest, wackiest, and most wonderful destinations on the planet doesn't fill you with insatiable wanderlust, then you need to check your pulse.” —mental_floss

“This is the fun way, a deep dive (sometimes literally) into places you’d never find otherwise, the weird and wild wonders of the world.” —WIRED

“The book is for people who prefer to live like locals when they travel, seek out new cultures on vacation, or just prefer the weirdness of history to traditional by-the-book experiences. Even if you can’t travel, Atlas Obscura is a window into places you’d otherwise never know existed.” —lifehacker

“A travel guide for the most adventurous of tourists . . . a wonderful browse [for] armchair travelers who enjoyed Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York and Frank Warren’s PostSecret.” —Library Journal

“I thought I had seen most of the interesting bits of the world. Atlas Obscura showed me that I was wrong.It's the kind of book that makes you want to pack in your workaday life and head out to places you'd never have dreamed of going, to see things you could not even have imagined. A joy to read and to reread.” —NEIL GAIMAN, author of Sandman and American Gods

“Atlas Obscura is a joyful antidote to the creeping suspicion that travel these days is little more than a homogenized corporate shopping opportunity.Here are hundreds of surprising, perplexing, mind-blowing, inspiring reasons to travel a day longer and farther off the path. . . . Bestest travel guide ever.” —MARY ROACH, author of Stiff and Gulp

“Atlas Obscura may be the only thing that can still inspire me to leave my apartment. . . . This resource is essential for exploring the world and engaging adventure with wit and style (often from the comfort of my bed).” —LENA DUNHAM, creator of Girls and author of Not That Kind of Girl

“My favorite travel guide! Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or a mouth of hell is!” —GUILLERMO DEL TORO, filmmaker, Pan’s Labyrinth   “What a strange and wonderful book! It is as curious and surprising as Saddam Hussein’s very own Blood Qur’an—written in his own blood—which I would never have known about had I not read the amazing Atlas Obscura.” —JON RONSON, author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed   “This book is as curious and enthralling as the world it covers. Each page reveals some hidden realm—a realm that is frightening, or funny, or magical, or simply mad, but that always leaves the reader in wonder.” —DAVID GRANN, author of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

“Your peregrine falcon needs a small talon trim? Go straight to the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital. . . . Be grateful when visiting the Karni Mata Rat Temple if one of the 20,000 venerated rodents runs across your bare foot—it is considered good luck. . . . You won’t be able to enter the 20-years-in-the-making and still abandoned tallest hotel in the world. It does not matter. Wherever you look around Pyongyang, North Korea, the 105-story skyscraper silently towers over all. . . . Life is short. Our planet is filled with curiosities and marvels . . . and this wondrous book is your guide!” —PHILIPPE PETIT, high-wire artist and explorer

Other Books in Series

Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer's Guide (Atlas Obscura)

The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid

Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

The Explorer's Library: Books That Inspire Wonder (Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura 2-Book Set)

Atlas Obscura Explorer's Journal: Let Your Curiosity Be Your Compass

Atlas Obscura Wall Calendar 2019

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Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

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Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition

An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

Contributors

By Joshua Foer

By Ella Morton

By Dylan Thuras

By Atlas Obscura

Formats and Prices

• Audiobook Download
• Hardcover (Revised) $40.00 $50.00 CAD
• ebook $18.99 $24.99 CAD
• Audiobook Download $44.99 $82.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 15, 2019. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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Description

Discover wonder.

“A wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper.”— New York Times

Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, Atlas Obscura is a phenomenon of a travel book that shot to the top of bestseller lists when it was first published and changed the way we think about the world, expanding our sense of how strange and marvelous it really is.

This second edition takes readers to even more curious and unusual destinations, with more than 100 new places, dozens and dozens of new photographs, and two very special features: twelve city guides, covering Berlin, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cairo, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Plus a foldout map with a dream itinerary for the ultimate around-the-world road trip. More a cabinet of curiosities than traditional guidebook, Atlas Obscura revels in the unexpected, the overlooked, the bizarre, and the mysterious. Here are natural wonders, like the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobob tree in South Africa so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can sit and drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M. C. Escher–like stepwells in India. Mind-boggling events, like the Baby-Jumping Festival in Spain—and no, it’s not the babies doing the jumping, but masked men dressed as devils who vault over rows of squirming infants.

Every page gets to the very core of why humans want to travel in the first place: to be delighted and disoriented, uprooted from the familiar and amazed by the new. With its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, and new city guides, it is a book you can open anywhere and be transported. But proceed with caution: It’s almost impossible not to turn to the next entry, and the next, and the next.

• Special Interest
• Praise for the first edition of Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders “A wanderlust-whetting cabinet of curiosities on paper” — The New York Times “This book is as curious and enthralling as the world it covers. Each page reveals some hidden realm—a realm that is frightening, or funny, or magical, or simply mad, but that always leaves the reader in wonder.” — DAVID GRANN, author of  Killers of the Flower Moon “I thought I had seen most of the interesting bits of the world.  Atlas Obscura  showed me that I was wrong. It's the kind of book that makes you want to pack in your workaday life and head out to places you'd never have dreamed of going, to see things you could not even have imagined. A joy to read and to reread.” — NEIL GAIMAN, author of  Sandman  and  American Gods “ Atlas Obscura  is a joyful antidote to the creeping suspicion that travel these days is little more than a homogenized corporate shopping opportunity. Here are hundreds of surprising, perplexing, mind-blowing, inspiring reasons to travel a day longer and farther off the path. . . . Bestest travel guide ever.” — MARY ROACH, author of  Stiff  and  Gulp “My favorite travel guide! Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or a mouth of hell is!” — GUILLERMO DEL TORO, filmmaker,  Pan’s Labyrinth “Fair warning: It's addictive.” — NPR, “Cosmos & Culture” “In this gorgeous collection, the celebrated Atlas Obscura website is condensed into 480 pages of awe-inspiring destinations. For lovers of history and exploration, the striking color photographs will spark immediate wanderlust.” — Entertainment Weekly “Odds are you won’t get past three pages without being amazed at something truly strange that you didn’t know existed.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Richly illustrated, delightfully strange, this compendium of off-beat destinations should spark many adventures, both terrestrial and imaginary.” — Boston Globe “This book is PACKED with wonderful, amazing, fascinating places all around the world. This is the perfect gift for the person who thinks they’ve done it all and seen it all because this shows that there’s so much more in the world to explore. It’s a wonderful, wonderful coffee table book.” — NBC, “TODAY” “A perfect tome for the armchair explorer and the actual traveler alike.” — Austin American Statesman “Whether describing a Canadian museum that showcases world history through shoes, a pet-casket company that will also sell you a unit for your severed limb, a Greek snake festival, or a place in the Canary Islands where inhabitants communicate through whistling, the authors have compiled an enthralling range of oddities. Featuring full-color illustrations, this hefty and gorgeously produced tome will be eagerly pored over by readers of many ages and fans of the original website.”— Booklist (Starred Review) “If this compendium of the weirdest, wackiest, and most wonderful destinations on the planet doesn't fill you with insatiable wanderlust, then you need to check your pulse.” — mental_floss “This is the fun way, a deep dive (sometimes literally) into places you’d never find otherwise, the weird and wild wonders of the world.” — WIRED “The book is for people who prefer to live like locals when they travel, seek out new cultures on vacation, or just prefer the weirdness of history to traditional by-the-book experiences. Even if you can’t travel,  Atlas Obscura  is a window into places you’d otherwise never know existed.” — lifehacker “A travel guide for the most adventurous of tourists . . . a wonderful browse [for] armchair travelers who enjoyed Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York and Frank Warren’s PostSecret.” — Library Journal “The most addictive book of the year.” — Colin McEnroe, WNPR Praise for the second edition of Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders “The Second Edition of Atlas Obscura is a hefty book but one that the world traveler in your life will love. There are hidden gems with over 100 more places added from the original. Travel through Budapest, Moscow, Tokyo, and more with the turn of the page and showcase all the curiosities this world holds.” — The Daily Beast “Beholding hundreds of off-the-beaten-path gems, this book is a treasure chest of wanderlust where readers are transported to places they’re certain to have never encountered.” — Marie Claire “The second edition of “Atlas Obscura” is a gift so enthralling that it may draw the recipient into a kind of extended trance. Crammed fore-to-aft with “the world’s hidden wonders,” this collaboration by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton features mesmerizing photos, maps, drawings, info and addresses. On one page there’s a Thai monk standing in saffron serenity in a village temple built of brown and green beer bottles; on another a bust of Vladimir Lenin, erected in 1958 by Soviet scientists who made it to Antarctica’s “Southern Pole of Inaccessibility.” If you can get there (the authors have advice about that), you may find, depending on the weather, only the top of the tyrant’s head poking from the snow.”  — Wall Street Journal "Satisfy your wanderlust and plan your next travel adventure with the help of this brilliantly illustrated guide."  —Car and Driver Magazine

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Joshua Foer

About the author.

Joshua Foer is the cofounder of Atlas Obscura, coauthor of Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders , and coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders . His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, National Geographic, Esquire, Slate, Outside, the New York Times , and other publications. His book, Moonwalking with Einstein , was an international bestseller published in thirty-seven languages.

Learn more about this author

Ella Morton

Ella Morton  is a New Zealand-born, Australia-raised, Brooklyn-based writer, focusing on overlooked aspects of history and culture. After covering consumer technology at CNET she hosted Rocketboom NYC, a web show about New York’s quirkier people and places. Her most popular interview was a chat with Cookie Monster on the set of Sesame Street . Ella was associate editor at AtlasObscura.com, where she wrote about such topics as tobacco smoke enemas, Victorian streaming music services, and the etiquette of marrying a ghost.

Atlas Obscura

Book Review: Atlas Obscura

• By Paul Weimer
• December 8, 2016

The world is stranger, more magical, more strange than you can possibly imagine. Since 2009, the Atlas Obscura website has been a destination for people who want to look at, or add to, the ever growing database of strange and wondrous places and things in the world. From giant balls of string to glowworm caves, Atlas Obscura has been a blessing for people looking to escape the spreadsheets at work for a bit. And now there is a book. Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders , written by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, takes 700 entries from the Atlas Obscura website and rewrites them into a handy hardcover book.

The book is arranged by region, drilling down to the state level in the case of the US. The variety of the 700 entries is a mixture of the small, the large, and the unexpected. Be it the agricultural museum of Cairo or the Kola Superdeep Borehole, or one square mile Carcross Desert, or the sign post forest at a spot on the Alaska Highway, there are sites from places you might never get to. And then there is the CIA Museum in Langley, and the Hobo Museum in Iowa, Carhenge in Nebraska, the old mechanical clock in Salisbury Cathedral, and other places  and things you can really visit. Each entry provides directions on how to get to see it for yourself, cautioning the reader in cases where one has to dare going onto a closed locale, or even dare a trip to North Korea. It’s all implicit invitation for travelers to follow in their footsteps and see the wonders with their own eyes.

So is there a point to the book? Is there any good reason to read the book and not just go trolling and traversing through the website, which has many more entries? Yes. Even in an interconnected world such as ours, there is a tactile experience to flipping through this book, coffee table style, and discovering things like Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden in South Carolina, or the fact that there is a bust of Darth Vader on the Washington National Cathedral, or the near-continuous lightning storms that plague Congo Mirador in Venezuela.  While wandering through links on the website is a time-honored tradition, the book has a presentation that the website can’t quite match.  And the curated, relatively narrow 700 entries means that rather than a tsunami of things that can overwhelm you just wanting to read about a cool place or three on the web, you can get a curated selection.

There are also the entries that transcend the single place, that help extend and tie the book together; these are the  real meat and potatoes of the book. They are all “inspired” by a particular single entry and give a sense that there is rhyme and repeat across the world. For example, the entry on Xieng Khuan Buddha Park in Laos is followed on the next two pages by an entry on Giant Buddha Statues of Asia, to scale, with the puny Statue of Liberty by comparison. Did YOU know that the Leshan Giant Buddha, 223 feet tall, is the tallest pre-modern statue on Earth? (It’s twice as high as the long lost “Wonder” The Colossus of Rhodes!). An entry on Maine’s cryptozoology museum is followed by a map of the US festooned with the reputed “Nessie”-like lake monsters across the country. (I had no idea that the Mississippi river in Minnesota has one, called “Pepie”).

  I’ve joked about living in a science fictional world, but really, obscure and strange corners of the world can have a fantastic air. Even as our world is more interconnected than ever, there is a true sense of wonder to be had about our world that is just as real as a sense of wonder in wandering in a science fictional or fantasy landscape. The world is stranger, more magical, more strange than you can possibly imagine. A tlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders  brings that real-world sense of wonder  to the reader. This is the kind of book that I think is hard to give to oneself, but is one of those books to gift to an armchair traveler. Or, even better, to a not-so-armchair traveler who might very well go and seek out some of the places contained therein.

• atlas , curiosities , field guide , tourism , trips

Paul Weimer

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Atlas Obscura 2024 review: Travel and explore the extraordinary!

Travel guides are a great way to explore and get inspired by new destinations and ideas for travel. Atlas Obscura claims to provide the content for quirky and unusual places to travel to, but are they legit for travelers? Can you really explore these extraordinary destinations? Find out now.

One of the best things about planning your trip is the flexibility that comes with it. Where booking a guided tour allows you to benefit from an all-inclusive trip, planning a trip gives you total control over everything. Whether it's to visit a particular café or spend the entire day at a museum, you'll be able to control all aspects of your travel itinerary.

But how do you know where are the best places to go?

That's where travel guides come in! Big-name Travel guides, like Lonely Planet and Fodors, provide travel destinations and attractions to a broad range of travelers worldwide. While they're decent in inspiring people to travel, many of the attractions are common tourist spots that most people already know from a quick Google search. In comes Atlas Obscura.

Atlas Obscura targets and tailors travel content to frequent travelers looking for quirky, rare, or unusual attractions. Atlas Obscura has become one of the  best travel guide websites , helping travelers avoid tourist traps and find incredible new attractions. But how do you know whether Atlas Obscura's content is suitable for a traveler like you?

Read our Atlas Obscura review to learn more. 

What is Atlas Obscura?

Atlas Obscura  is an online magazine and a travel guide company that identifies itself as 'the definitive guide to the world's hidden wonders.' It also goes as a database of user-generated content on odd and unique places worldwide. 

It was initiated by Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras in 2009. Since then, the magazine gained fame for steering travelers away from the commonplace to explore out-of-the-ordinary attractions.

At first, Atlas Obscura merely published content on places, food, drinks, and rare experiences worldwide. In 2016, the company extended itself as a travel booking site by offering guided tours designed by its team. During the pandemic, they leveraged their virtual experiences and courses. They have also began retelling stories through travel experiences of the change in 

If you'd like to consume their content on the go, they have a mobile app available. The Atlas Obscura Travel Guide app is available for iOS devices. 

What does Atlas Obscura offer?

Atlas Obscura offers its content and services under six main categories.

• Places:  Offers 22,921 'extraordinary places' or 'hidden wonders' that you can explore worldwide. Places cover both natural and man-made sites.
• Food:  A collection of local food and drink specialties, places to eat, and stories of fascinating gastronomy. 
• Stories:  Includes contributions made by the Atlas Obscura community of travelers and explorers that focus on unusual discoveries.
• Courses:  Online courses to gain knowledge, skills, and ideas on a range of topics, including food-making processes, writing, sewing, etc. Prices vary depending on the subject and the number of sessions. 
• Experiences:  Virtual and in-person experiences include educational, adventurous, inspirational, or fun events/workshops. Members have exclusive access to a selection of experiences free of charge. 
• Trips:  Guided, small group tours that promise a unique experience for participants. Trips are categorized under Art & Culture, Food & Drink, Hidden Cities, History, Photography, Private, Wildlife & Nature. 

Atlas Obscura's travel guide books

The company released its first-ever travel guide book titled "Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders" in 2016. It is available in both paperback and ebook versions. You can purchase it from the Atlas Obscura website or leading sites like Amazon. 

In addition, there are also other titles available for purchase, like Explorer's Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid, Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer's Guide, and Atlas Obscura Page-A-Day Calendar 2022. 

How does Atlas Obscura work?

Visit the website and enter the destination you have in mind on the search bar. You can look for 'Places near me' or 'Random place' if you need ideas for exploration. Users can also browse for attractions and stories by category.

By creating an account, you can add places to your personal list of places, mark favorites, and flag places you have already visited. Use the forum to exchange travel ideas, start conversations, and engage in meaningful discussions with fellow explorers and readers. More importantly, you can provide submissions of extraordinary places you stumble across to let others know! 

You can also become a paid member to enjoy more perks like member-only online experiences/events, discounts on trips and courses, an exclusive newsletter, and fewer ads. Monthly subscriptions plans start from $5, and annual subscriptions start from $50.

What we liked about Atlas Obscura

• Unique spots

If you like off-the-beaten-path attractions and quirky subjects of interest, consider your curiosity piqued with Atlas Obscura. We loved how the content focuses on diverse subjects that are informative, fun, and provocative. More importantly, there are places you won't find in other travel guides. It is a very resourceful website to consider when planning your trip. You can search for attractions in the destination you hope to visit and add them to your itinerary. 

• Well-planned tours 

Atlas Obscura tours offer a rich, high-value-driven experience, and we came across raving reviews to validate it! They focus on aspects that go unnoticed and less popular places. That being said, they don't miss out on covering the basics either. Their tour guides are highly knowledgeable and communicative. As the tours are conducted in small groups, connecting and interacting with fellow travelers is easy. 

• Easy-to-use 

The website is very appealing both visually and content-wise. It's easy to navigate, and the mobile app makes it even more convenient to browse for hidden attractions near you. Even the booking process is safe and straightforward. The only downside here is that the app is unavailable for Android devices. As long as you follow the guidelines, submitting a story about a 'new place' or starting a discussion on the forum is a straightforward process.

What Atlas Obscura can do better

Atlas Obscura's guided trips aim to provide one-of-a-kind adventures to travelers. So, they are more expensive than tours offered by other companies like  G Adventures . For example, the trip to Greece exploring ancient ruins to modern culture costs $6750, while G-Adventures' Greece tours around $3000. So, Atlas Obscura is not an ideal choice for budgeted travelers. 

Is Atlas Obscura worth it?

Yes. It's highly resourceful and guides you away from mundane, crowded, touristy places. If you like your trip to have a touch of adventure and curiosity, we highly recommend Atlas Obscura. 

Our Rating: 4.6/5

• Well-planned tours
• Easy-to-use
• Tours are expensive
• Mobile app only on iOS

An alternative to Atlas Obscura

Just like Atlas Obscura,  Pilot's blog  is the go-to resource for travelers to get inspiration on new travel destinations, attractions, and more. Whether you're a first-time budget traveler or an experienced digital nomad, our blogs provide new insights and inspirations on travel and travel-related topics!

Plan your trip with Pilot

Besides providing travel content to travelers worldwide, we help travelers plan and experience their best trips through Pilot.

Disclosure : Pilot is supported by our community. We may earn a small commission fee with affiliate links on our website. All reviews and recommendations are independent and do not reflect the official view of Pilot.

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THE ATLAS OBSCURA EXPLORER’S GUIDE FOR THE WORLD’S MOST ADVENTUROUS KID

by Dylan Thuras & Rosemary Mosco ; illustrated by Joy Ang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2018

One delectable sampler of wonders, there for the asking.

A worldwide collection of superior oddities.

For each of the 47 countries featured here, Thuras and Mosco highlight two strange features, be they weather or natural resources, human artifact or moment in history. Accompanied by Ang’s full-color illustrations and a small globe situating the country under examination, Thuras and Mosco have linked each country to the next in line by some common curiosity. Peru’s Nazca Lines lead to Australia’s Marree Man, for instance, and then Australia’s second marvel—Lord Howe Island, where dwells the phasmid, a lobsterlike, hand-long insect—leads to Brazil’s Snake Island, which hosts swarms of golden lanceheads (“They sit in trees and ambush migratory birds, injecting flesh-dissolving venom into them”) but very few visitors. It is debatable whether a kid has to be adventurous to enjoy many of these unusual features, such as the Antikythera mechanism, which is akin to a 2,000-year-old computer, found in Greece or England’s difference engine No. 2, a 200-year-old mathematical calculator, but curiosity is both a must and a given. The tone is consistently upbeat but not melodramatic, giving the oddments a sense of reality rather than fantasy—that you could go and witness these phenomena yourself.

Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5235-0354-4

Page Count: 112

Publisher: Workman

Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Share your opinion of this book

FLASH FACTS

edited by Mayim Bialik ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 2021

Contentwise, an arbitrary assortment…but sure to draw fans of comics, of science, or of both.

Flash, Batman, and other characters from the DC Comics universe tackle supervillains and STEM-related topics and sometimes, both.

Credited to 20 writers and illustrators in various combinations, the 10 episodes invite readers to tag along as Mera and Aquaman visit oceanic zones from epipelagic to hadalpelagic; Supergirl helps a young scholar pick a science-project topic by taking her on a tour of the solar system; and Swamp Thing lends Poison Ivy a hand to describe how DNA works (later joining Swamp Kid to scuttle a climate-altering scheme by Arcane). In other episodes, various costumed creations explain the ins and outs of diverse large- and small-scale phenomena, including electricity, atomic structure, forensic techniques, 3-D printing, and the lactate threshold. Presumably on the supposition that the characters will be more familiar to readers than the science, the minilectures tend to start from simple basics, but the figures are mostly both redrawn to look more childlike than in the comics and identified only in passing. Drawing styles and page designs differ from chapter to chapter but not enough to interrupt overall visual unity and flow—and the cast is sufficiently diverse to include roles for superheroes (and villains) of color like Cyborg, Kid Flash, and the Latina Green Lantern, Jessica Cruz. Appended lists of websites and science-based YouTube channels, plus instructions for homespun activities related to each episode, point inspired STEM-winders toward further discoveries.

Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-77950-382-4

Page Count: 160

Publisher: DC

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

More by Mayim Bialik

BOOK REVIEW

by Mayim Bialik

by Mayim Bialik ; illustrated by Siobhán Gallagher

by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Jeanette Winter ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2020

Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.

In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.

The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?

Pub Date: March 31, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

More by Jonah Winter

by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Jeanette Winter

by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Bob Staake

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Atlas Obscura: An Explorers Guide To The Worlds Hidden Wonders

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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎  Workman Publishing Company (September 20, 2016)
• Language ‏ : ‎  English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎  480 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎  0761169083
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎  978-0761169086
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎  3.22 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎  10.5 x 7 x 1.9 inches

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The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid Hardcover – September 18, 2018

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Part of series Atlas Obscura
• Print length 112 pages
• Language English
• Grade level 3 - 7
• Lexile measure 910L
• Dimensions 9.5 x 0.63 x 12.25 inches
• Publisher Workman Publishing Company
• Publication date September 18, 2018
• ISBN-10 1523503548
• ISBN-13 978-1523503544
• See all details

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Captivating guides to extraordinary destinations and wonders—far-flung and in your own backyard—that inspire curiosity and adventure.

Atlas Obscura is a global community of explorers who have together created an extensive library of the world’s most wondrous places and foods—from a secret apartment atop the Eiffel Tower to bridges built out of living roots, from a fruit that tastes like chocolate pudding to a spicy chutney made out of red ants, from Bleeding Tooth fungi that ooze blood-colored goo to the world’s largest beaver dam—so big it can be seen from space.

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Editorial reviews, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company; Illustrated edition (September 18, 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 112 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1523503548
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1523503544
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 7 - 11 years, from customers
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 910L
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ 3 - 7
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.01 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.5 x 0.63 x 12.25 inches
• #135 in Children's Mystery & Wonders Books (Books)
• #144 in Children's Travel Books (Books)
• #3,040 in Children's Action & Adventure Books (Books)

About the authors

Rosemary mosco.

Rosemary Mosco is a science writer and artist, and she’s passionate about sharing her love for the natural world.

She creates the award-winning science webcomic Bird and Moon and has written and drawn for Audubon, Ranger Rick, The American Ornithological Society, Nature Ecology & Evolution, and others. Her work was the subject of an award-winning museum exhibit at Cornell's Museum of the Earth and was featured by IFLS, Audubon, Upworthy, io9, Science News, the National Wildlife Federation, The Huffington Post, It’s Okay to be Smart, The Mary Sue, The Times of India, and more.

She once spent six months drawing all 162 species of snake in the United States. Her favorite bird is the Laysan Albatross.

Dylan Thuras

"Dylan Thuras is the co-founder of Atlas Obscura, a multimedia company and “Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders” visited by over 5 million monthly users, and co-author of NY Times #1 best seller Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders. He is the author of the forthcoming 2018 kids book “The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid.”

Dylan has spoken at conferences including SXSW, and the New Yorker Festival about discovery, wonder, and changing nature of travel. Dylan lives in Rosendale, NY with his wife Michelle, his three year old son Phineas, and the brand new addition to the household, his daughter Jean. When not traveling, changing diapers or sleeping, Dylan enjoys drawing, science fiction, and general nerdery.

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