Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition
An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo first 3 months
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pre-order for $24.63
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Dylan Thuras
About this listen
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 listeners 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.
This book 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.
©2019 Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton, Atlas Obscura (P)2025 Workman Publishing CompanyCritic reviews
“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
Related to this topic
-
The Year of Living Danishly
- Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
- By: Helen Russell
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long, dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born or made?
-
-
Interesting content. Unfortunate delivery.
- By Jennifer Soudagar on 11-13-15
By: Helen Russell
-
Made in America
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
-
-
Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
- By John on 02-28-14
By: Bill Bryson
-
Ranger Confidential
- Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks
- By: Andrea Lankford
- Narrated by: Julia Motyka
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The real stories behind the scenery of America’s national parks. For 12 years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.
-
-
Depressing from Cover to Cover
- By Drew (@drewsant) on 04-13-15
By: Andrea Lankford
-
Barbarian Days
- A Surfing Life
- By: William Finnegan
- Narrated by: William Finnegan
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016. Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.
-
-
What a Jerk.
- By ML Sadler on 03-06-17
By: William Finnegan
-
Ghost Rider
- Travels on the Healing Road
- By: Neil Peart
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. That lack of direction lead him on a 55,000 mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again.
-
-
Not happy, but fascinating
- By Jim In Texas! on 09-25-14
By: Neil Peart
-
Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- By: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
-
-
Sherpas, The True Unsung Heroes
- By Kathy in CA on 07-26-15
By: Peter Zuckerman, and others
-
The Year of Living Danishly
- Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country
- By: Helen Russell
- Narrated by: Lucy Price-Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long, dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born or made?
-
-
Interesting content. Unfortunate delivery.
- By Jennifer Soudagar on 11-13-15
By: Helen Russell
-
Made in America
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
-
-
Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
- By John on 02-28-14
By: Bill Bryson
-
Ranger Confidential
- Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks
- By: Andrea Lankford
- Narrated by: Julia Motyka
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The real stories behind the scenery of America’s national parks. For 12 years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.
-
-
Depressing from Cover to Cover
- By Drew (@drewsant) on 04-13-15
By: Andrea Lankford
-
Barbarian Days
- A Surfing Life
- By: William Finnegan
- Narrated by: William Finnegan
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016. Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.
-
-
What a Jerk.
- By ML Sadler on 03-06-17
By: William Finnegan
-
Ghost Rider
- Travels on the Healing Road
- By: Neil Peart
- Narrated by: Brian Sutherland
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. That lack of direction lead him on a 55,000 mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again.
-
-
Not happy, but fascinating
- By Jim In Texas! on 09-25-14
By: Neil Peart
-
Buried in the Sky
- The Extraordinary Story of the Sherpa Climbers on K2's Deadliest Day
- By: Peter Zuckerman, Amanda Padoan
- Narrated by: David Doersch
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Edmund Hillary first conquered Mt. Everest, Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was at his side. Indeed, for as long as Westerners have been climbing the Himalaya, Sherpas have been the unsung heroes in the background. In August 2008, when eleven climbers lost their lives on K2, the world’s most dangerous peak, two Sherpas survived. They had emerged from poverty and political turmoil to become two of the most skillful mountaineers on earth. Based on unprecedented access and interviews, Buried in the Sky reveals their astonishing story for the first time.
-
-
Sherpas, The True Unsung Heroes
- By Kathy in CA on 07-26-15
By: Peter Zuckerman, and others