Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders: 1

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Drogin’s book had dozens of such curses in it, and he had collected at least a dozen more to include in the second edition, which was never published. Inside his copy of the book, he still has a baggie of antique file cards, full of book curses. Throughout the book, Atlas Obscura presents countless examples of unusual and offbeat places. From secret gardens hidden in the heart of bustling cities to abandoned amusement parks reclaimed by nature, each location offers a glimpse into a world that is both captivating and unconventional. Readers are invited to explore the wonders of places like the Bone Church in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic, where the interior is adorned with human bones, or the remote Socotra Island in Yemen, home to bizarre and otherworldly plant species found nowhere else on Earth.

Foer is the younger brother of New Republic editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. He is the son of Esther Foer, president of a public relations firm, and Albert Foer, a think-tank president. He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School. He then went on to graduate from Yale University, where he lived in Silliman College, in 2004. Or perhaps your exploration takes you underground, delving deep into the heart of a modern urban city. Beneath the bustling streets of Montreal lies an extensive network of tunnels known as the Underground City. Within this subterranean maze, a parallel universe resides, boasting a mesmerizing blend of shops, restaurants, and theaters. As you descend further into this hidden realm, the intricate web of passageways becomes almost maze-like, a testament to human ingenuity. Despite the labyrinthine complexity, the Underground City hums with life, filled with individuals seeking respite from the freezing Canadian winters or simply relishing in the thrill of navigating through an underground metropolis. This captivating world below ground mirrors the layered nature of Atlas Obscura itself, encapsulating a rich tapestry of experiences waiting to be explored.After reading the key takeaways of the book "Atlas Obscura" by Joshua Foer, you will be inspired to explore the hidden wonders of the world, embark on intriguing adventures, and appreciate the extraordinary in the everyday. Incorporating the spirit of curiosity and discovery into your daily life, here are some detailed actions you can take to enrich your days: This feeling obviously stayed with me, and it’s at the heart of Atlas Obscura. So it is a great joy, alongside my incredible co-author Rosemary Mosco and our talented illustrator Joy Ang, to announce the official release of the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid. It’s a book for any young person who loves adventure, exploring, or just daydreaming about the world and wondering, what’s out there? This book is so rich with information, research, and photographs. It brings new locations, objects, and monuments to light in a unique way with showcasing the strange and outstanding corners of the world that will bring out numerous emotions from disbelief to wonder. It is an entertaining travel book that makes me want to reach out of my comfort zone and begin exploring the world, but it is also filled with history on places and people that I would have not otherwise learned, which makes it all the more captivating. My favorite travel guide! Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or a mouth of hell is!” 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

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. 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 vault over rows of squirming infants.

Customer reviews

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

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.” Writers Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ellen Morton have put together a sumptuous compendium of some of Obscura's more photogenic oddities. There are tons of fabulous photographs and illustrations throughout and while hardcore weird history buffs might prefer it if descriptions were a tad more in depth the authors smart, gently quippy analysis of each entry is certainly enough to whet the appetite and send fans scurrying to do research of their own. The funny thing is, though my parents were sure to take me to several tourist destinations while we were abroad, I usually didn't seek out such places myself. This was especially true in Italy, where my friends and I would go explore the extensive tunnel systems under the city of Brindisi, and visit beach-side World War II bunkers where we would look for (and find) old shell casing from a time when our grandfathers might have been storming the beach. This was also true when I lived in England, where our favorite thing to do was to break into an old, supposedly haunted 12th-century priory, complete with trap doors in the floors and passageways hidden within the walls. They are real. I found them and walked through them myself. But I never did get to the Roman Colosseum, nor did I ever visit the Tower of London. Maybe I had an aversion to doing the touristy things because I LIVED there. Yes, the stay was temporary, no more than three years, but these places were "home" for me. So I didn't feel like a tourist. I'd much rather go watch the bums roll each other on Carnaby Street (affectionately known as "Cannabis Street" to us teenagers and, which has become way more commercialized now than when I was a kid hanging out there in the mid-'80s) than step foot in Madame Tussauds (I even had to cheat to see how to spell that). I've had hookers proposition me on Leicester Square, watched hungry bands busk on the tubes, and, yes, watched bums roll each other in alleyways. This was my idea of "touristing". Foer's work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, and The Nation. In 2007, the quarterly art & culture journal Cabinet began publishing Foer's column "A Minor History Of." The column "examines an overlooked cultural phenomenon using a timeline."

My point is if obscure, off the beaten path weird travel destinations is your thing go buy this book. Seek Out Natural Wonders: Take time to explore the natural phenomena around you. Plan hikes, nature walks, or camping trips in local parks, forests, or nature reserves. Seek out geological wonders like caves, waterfalls, or canyons. Marvel at the beauty of nature and its ability to create breathtaking landscapes.

The book continues to take readers on a whirlwind exploration of extraordinary places and hidden wonders that span the globe. From the towering sand dunes of Namibia's Skeleton Coast to the breathtaking glowworm caves of New Zealand, Atlas Obscura introduces readers to a world of awe-inspiring discoveries. The magnificent architectural marvels of Petra in Jordan, the whimsical Fairy Circles in Namibia, and the ethereal beauty of the Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand are just a few of the countless examples that invite readers to step off the beaten path and embrace the wonders that lie beyond the familiar. Document Your Experiences: Capture your explorations through photography, journaling, or blogging. Use these mediums to reflect on your experiences, emotions, and observations. Sharing your adventures with others can inspire them to seek out their own curiosity-filled journeys. Books such as the The Dance of Death were being bound in human skin as late as the 1890s. Many of these books now belong to libraries, including the John Hay Library at Brown University, the library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and potentially the Cleveland Public Library and the library of Harvard Law School.

Embracing curiosity and seeking out the unusual and offbeat can lead to unexpected and enriching experiences. 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).” Richly illustrated, delightfully strange, this compendium of off-beat destinations should spark many adventures, both terrestrial and imaginary.” —Boston Globe 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.”