An audio guide to the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Co-founder Dylan Thuras and a neighborhood of Atlas Obscura reporters explore a new wonder every day, Monday through Thursday. In under 15 minutes, they’ll take you to an incredible place, and along the way, you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their stories. Our theme and end credit music is composed by Sam Tyndall.
Daren Grover was on vacation near the top of New Zealand’s South Island when he got a call: some whales needed help. Hundreds of them had stranded on a spot so notorious for whale strandings, it’s cause for celebration when a year goes by without a stranding: the Farewell Spit.
Check out Project Jonah: https://www.projectjonah.org.nz/
Giant searchable database of sustainable seafood (and seafood to avoid) from Monterey Bay Aquarium: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/recommendations
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Long before Joe Exotic got the country talking about big cats, there was Joe Taft – regular guy – who began raising and rescuing these types of felines in Indiana.
MORE: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/exotic-feline-rescue-center-2
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What drives a person to live in isolation? Meet Sue Aikens, who thrives in the icy expanse of the Arctic. She shares stories of survival, self-discovery, and the wild encounters that continue to shape her life. Her memoir, "North of Ordinary," was just published.
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Todd Lerew has spent a decade visiting every single museum in Los Angeles. He chronicled his journey in his book Also on View: Unique and Unexpected Museums of Greater Los Angeles.
Check out Todd’s map of the museums at Everymuseum.la. Plus, listen to our episode with Jane August who is undertaking a similar project in NYC.
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In the 1950s, a journalist doing archival research at the Staten Island Historical Society came across a collection of images that stopped him in his tracks. These photos featured women from the 1890s smoking cigarettes, dressed in men’s clothing, showing their petticoats or legs or hair. These photos were taken by a woman named Alice Austen, and Jensen decided to track her down…a trail which led him to the Staten Island poor house.
Today we learn Alice’s story, by visiting the house on Staten Island where she lived for most of her life – before she lost nearly everything – which is today a museum dedicated to her life and work.
Check out the Alice Austen House online: https://aliceausten.org/
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You may have heard the phrase 'third place' being used more often as the world started opening up post-pandemic. People were craving somewhere that was neither their home or work, but still a place to focus social connection. But the Barbican, in London, was WAY ahead of its time.
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We wanna hear your stories about the times you’ve accidentally broken the rules somewhere foreign to you.
Maybe you went into a temple with your shoes on, when you weren’t supposed to. Maybe you had a drink at a sacred place and were forbidden to enter again. Or maybe you even wound up in a brush with the local police for something minor that’s not against the rules where you live.
Tell us where you went. What happened? Why did you get in trouble? And how did you ultimately get out of it? Give us a call at (315) 992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Or leave us a voice memo at [email protected].
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A producer takes a detour for a glimpse of what some call New York’s worst kept secret – a train station that’s been shut down and sealed away for nearly a century.
MORE: Visit the New York Transit Museum’s website to learn how to become a member and book a tour of the station.
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Cultural historian Kassia St. Clair tells the stories of two highly prized colors that are linked to specific places in the world: an exquisite, extremely expensive blue that crossed the globe and upended the European art world… and a shade of purple that possibly wouldn’t have ever come to exist in a different place and time.
Learn more about color history in Kassia’s book, The Secret Lives of Color
Plus: We always want to hear from you! If you have a question or story for us, give us a call at at 315-992-7902 and leave a message, or send an email to [email protected].
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Catia Lattouf has dedicated her life to nursing hummingbirds back to health – from inside her apartment in Mexico City.
Plus: We always want to hear from you! If you have a question or story for us, give us a call at at 315-992-7902 and leave a message, or send an email to [email protected].
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Over the course of a century, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan has grown to house over 26 million artifacts of innovative achievements. However, one quiet piece – prized by Ford above all others – curiously stands out among the collection: a seemingly empty sealed test tube.
In this episode, we uncover this relic’s story and how it preserves an enduring friendship within the country’s technological history.
We always want to hear from you! If you have a question or story for us, give us a call at at 315-992-7902 and leave a message, or send an email to [email protected].
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