Atlas Obscura:  An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders
Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras & Ella Morton (2016)

THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

One of the latest travel books to appear front and center in many bookstores lately is Atlas Obscura, an encyclopedic collection of the world’s most mysterious and marvelous wonders.  It first was an online magazine focused on travel and exploration, and given its popularity, a book was spun off in 2016.  The book is organized by location and absolutely full of interesting suggestions for wherever you want to go.  We particularly like the 40 year old hole of fire in Turkmenistan called the Gates of Hell, the abandoned and beautiful New York City subway station called City Hall Station, Japan’s “Cat Island”, the bone museums in Italy, the deteriorating Ta Prohm temple in the Cambodian jungle, a tree in South Africa that has a pub inside with room for 15 people, and San Francisco’s secret tiled staircase.  It is a beautiful hard-covered book, and a great gift for those who like travel and who are curious about the world around them.  
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A5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THOSE WHO LIKED THIS BOOK

GREAT QUOTES:

"Though Atlas Obscura may have the trappings of a travel guide, it is in truth something else.  The site ,and this book, are kind of a wunderkammer of places, a cabinet of curiosities that is meant to inspire wonderlust as much as wanderlust.  In fact, many of the places in this book are not "tourist sites" and should not be treated as such.  Others are so out of the way, so treacherously situated, or (in at least one case) so deep beneath the surface, that few readers will ever be able to visit them.  But here they are, sharing this marvelously strange planet with us."
- Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras, Introduction to Atlas Obscura

INTERESTING THINGS FROM ATLAS OBSCURA

  • ​The sailing stones of Racetrack Playa, rocks that show long tracks of movement yet no one has ever seen them move
  • An ancient Indonesian temple in Ubud known as the Elephant Cave, with a lot of incredible monsters carved amongst stone flames
  • Aokigahara Suicide Forest in Japan, a vast forest known unfortunately for being the world's second most popular place to commit suicide, behind the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco
  • Todra Gorge in Morocco, one of the most spectacular canyons in the world
  • One of the biggest golden Buddha statues in the world, in Tambon Phai Cham Sin in Thailand