Atlas Obscura

A compilation of the best of their excellent website, the book covers amazing and little known wonders of the world. Once you start browsing, you cannot stop. Highly recommended.

The subtitle of this Atlas Obscura book is "An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders," and this book does a good job of picking out stranger or lesser known attractions around the world to visit.

If you're tired of the usual tourist lists of places to go and things to see, Atlas Obscura is a great resource for finding new things to add to your list.

I love everything about this book. It truly makes me want to win the lottery so I can travel the world and ses all of these fabulous hidden wonders. I can't wait to get my hands on the book itself in order to fully enjoy the experience of reading about these querky places.

Love the idea of this -- it's fascinating to look through sections on places I've been, and see how much cool stuff there was that I missed. When we had a day to ourselves in Johannesburg, SA a couple weeks ago, we looked it up, and sure enough, found some really cool off-the-beaten-path options. Thanks!

I can't say enough about how well this book is researched, written, and photographed. There are so many interesting things in Atlas Obscura. Of particular interest to me were the chained books of Hereford Cathedral in England; Vienna's Undertakers' Museum; the Kasper Hauser monument in Bavaria; and so many more. If you are interested in notable curiosities in this huge world of ours, I recommend this book highly.

I want to just pack my bags and take off and see the world after reading this book! I am an avid traveler and reader so the combination of both of these things really just make me happy! I love the Atlas Obscura facebook page and their articles. I want to just strap into a plane and visit all the unique and special places that are discussed here and I want to go find my own wonders!

So interesting and really well researched! This book made me want to travel and visit all of the exciting places.

In the current world of access to information about travel is readily available at the click of a mouse. It is therefore necessary for travel books to serve as curated guides to the obscure. This is what Atlas Obscura demonstrates. I want this book in my personal collection. These are things I would like to seek out when I travel that I may not discover through the standard sources of travel information. Lovely photos, illustrations and maps to bring to life the "hidden wonders" for those unable to travel, but enough information for those who need to seek these out. Very interesting and worth buying.

If you want to explore the world and avoid tourist traps, the website Atlas Obscura has been one great place to stop. In the new book Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders, readers get a chance to explore hidden places and exotic locales without ever leaving their couch. This is your book if you're interested in abandoned hotels or pubs built into gigantic trees.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders acts as a great travel guide, but also as a jumping off point to do further research on dream travels. Whether you're the type to casually point at a map and choose your next travel destination or research every last detail, this book does a great job of making sure you're not looking at the same places everyone else is. The book does a great job of covering various locations on multiple continents. This book won't just have you look at the United States, but Europe and even places like the glow worm caves of New Zealand.

If you're curious by nature, Atlas Obscura has been a great place to start. This book becomes just a more portable version you don't need to have GPS or internet to access.

How often do you hear of travel guides promising to lead you off the beaten path? And how often do those revealed destinations actually deliver on their promise, turning out to be something wonderful and worthwhile that you would've never found, seen, heard of, or even imagined without some curation or guidance? In my own experience as a travel writer and frequent explorer of whatever strange and unusual stuff I can get close to, not nearly as often as I'd like.

If you doubt that this guide is anything beyond the ordinary, try to remember the last time you saw a supplementary page in a travel guide offering additional sights of interest titled, "Other Mummified Buddhist Monks". Mummies not your thing? How about the rat king of Nantes, Canadian garter snake orgies, or Saddam Hussein’s illegal Qur’an written in his own blood, his 60th birthday gift to himself?

For the less macabre, what about an exploration of the world's micronations, a museum that chronicles ended relationships, some of the most bizarre architecture on earth, photos of impossibly stunning natural phenomena, surreal relics of Communism, or a comprehensive map of visitable nuclear test sites?

It’s all here. And more. So, so much more.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders, grew out of the popular website of the same name, a curated collection of short articles about weird, mysterious places around the world, with enlightening background and historical information thrown in. As a fan of the site, I couldn't wait to see how their guidebook would be done. I read an advanced ebook copy for review courtesy of Netgalley, and it was gorgeously produced. But this is a book I'd like to have a physical copy of, because it's the perfect content to page through and explore slowly. Beautifully photographed and arranged, it would make such a unique coffee table book.

Starting in Europe and trekking through a myriad of attractions that wrap around the globe all the way to what you can see and do should you find yourself in Antarctica, this unusual travel guide is an explorer's dream. For those whose travel interests gravitate towards cabinets of curiosities, a good and weird wunderkammer, medical oddities, astrological and natural or scientific marvels, the strangest of saintly reliquaries and religious objects, and lots of catacombs and unconventional tombs (this list is far from complete; the scope of topics is so wonderfully eclectic) this is the guide for you. In addition to helping discover some of the lesser known gems of the world's weirdness, it provides geographic coordinates and a handy map of each country and its surrounding region with the mentioned sites mapped out, so you can get a geographic idea or plan an itinerary.

I’ve never read a book that inspired so much wanderlust. In fact, that’s the only down side - as exciting and inspiring as it is to read about all the strange and wonderful places lurking out there in the world, it’s hard to do so from home! Even without any travel plans on the horizon, I learned so much from the history, science, and culture described here, and made a big list of things I want to read more about. No matter where you go, there's something here to pique your curiosity, and help you find a new path to explore and discover. I'll never make another trip without paging through this first.

How often do you hear of travel guides promising to lead you off the beaten path? And how often do those revealed destinations actually deliver on their promise, turning out to be something wonderful and worthwhile that you would’ve never found, seen, heard of, or even imagined without some curation or guidance? In my own experience as a travel writer and frequent explorer of whatever strange and unusual stuff I can get close to, not nearly as often as I’d like.

If you doubt that this guide is anything beyond the ordinary, try to remember the last time you saw a supplementary page in a travel guide offering additional sights of interest titled, “Other Mummified Buddhist Monks”. Mummies not your thing? How about the rat king of Nantes, Canadian garter snake orgies, or Saddam Hussein’s illegal Qur’an written in his own blood, his 60th birthday gift to himself?

For the less macabre, what about an exploration of the world’s micronations, a museum that chronicles ended relationships, some of the most bizarre architecture on earth, photos of impossibly stunning natural phenomena, surreal relics of Communism, or a comprehensive map of visitable nuclear test sites?

It’s all here. And more. So, so much more.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders, grew out of the popular website of the same name, a curated collection of short articles about weird, mysterious places around the world, with enlightening background and historical information thrown in. As a fan of the site, I couldn’t wait to see how their guidebook would be done. I read an advanced ebook copy for review courtesy of Netgalley, and it was gorgeously produced. But this is a book I’d like to have a physical copy of, because it’s the perfect content to page through and explore slowly. Beautifully photographed and arranged, it would make such a unique coffee table book.

Starting in Europe and trekking through a myriad of attractions that wrap around the globe all the way to what you can see and do should you find yourself in Antarctica, this unusual travel guide is an explorer’s dream. For those whose travel interests gravitate towards cabinets of curiosities, a good and weird wunderkammer, medical oddities, astrological and natural or scientific marvels, the strangest of saintly reliquaries and religious objects, and lots of catacombs and unconventional tombs (this list is far from complete; the scope of topics is so wonderfully eclectic) this is the guide for you. In addition to helping discover some of the lesser known gems of the world’s weirdness, it provides geographic coordinates and a handy map of each country and its surrounding region with the mentioned sites mapped out, so you can get a geographic idea or plan an itinerary.

I’ve never read a book that inspired so much wanderlust. In fact, that’s the only down side – as exciting and inspiring as it is to read about all the strange and wonderful places lurking out there in the world, it’s hard to do so from home! Even without any travel plans on the horizon, I learned so much from the history, science, and culture described here, and made a big list of things I want to read more about. No matter where you go, there’s something here to pique your curiosity, and help you find a new path to explore and discover. I’ll never make another trip without paging through this first.

"A Cabinet of Curiosities that is Meant to Inspire Wonderlust as Much as Wanderlust"

ATLAS OBSCURA is one of those books that is nearly impossible to review. Although not technically a "picture book," that would be a good way to describe this book. The authors are clear that the book is not any type of travel guide, or tips on top places, or anything like that. Not at all. Rather, it's a guide to bizarre, wondrous places that you probably don't even know exist.

I confess that I have been to very few of the locations in this book. I am willing to bet that many readers will add these places as a "bucket list" of places to see.

The criteria for selection was simple--the location must be something that causes us to catch our breath a little, to gasp, to stare: “Our goal was to create a catalog of all the places, people, and things that inspire our sense of wonder.”

The authors wanted the reader to be inspired to see these locations: “The site, and this book, are a kind of wunderkammer of places, a cabinet of curiosities that is meant to inspire wonderlust as much as wanderlust.”

There is no doubt in my mind that ATLAS OBSCURA will certainly inspire the wondering spirit among many. This is one unusual and wonderful book.

Advance Review Copy courtesy of NetGalley

So this book is actually PERFECT for anyone who loves travelling along the beaten path, discovering the not-so touristy attractions while on holiday or the kind of person that religiously checks travel sites for the latest deals. Also that person who never really grew out of the Guinness world records books.

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