Type of site | Travel and Exploration |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founder(s) | Joshua Foer Dylan Thuras |
CEO | Warren Webster |
URL | www |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | 2009 |
Launched | 2009 |
OCLC number | 960889351 |
Atlas Obscura is an American-based travel and exploration company. [1] [2] [3] [4] It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. [4] [5] It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via professional and user-generated content, operates group trips to destinations around the world, produces a daily podcast, as well as books, TV and film. [6] The brand covers a number of topics including history, science, food, and obscure places.
Thuras and Foer met in 2007, and soon discussed ideas for a different kind of atlas, featuring places not commonly found in guidebooks. [7] They hired a web designer in 2008 and launched Atlas Obscura in 2009. [7] Annetta Black was the site's first senior editor. [8]
In 2010, the site organized the first of the international events known as Obscura Day. [9] Thuras has stated that one of the site's main goals is "Creating a real-world community who are engaging with us, each other and these places and getting away from their computers to actually see them." [7] As of 2021, Atlas Obscura has originated Atlas Obscura Societies organizing local experiences in nine cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle. [4] [9]
Sommer Mathis (formerly of The Atlantic 's CityLab) was the site's editor-in-chief from 2017 to 2020. She was succeeded by Samir Patel, formerly of Archaeology magazine, who became the site's editorial director in 2020 and editor-in-chief in 2021.
In October 2014, Atlas Obscura hired journalist David Plotz as its CEO. [5] David Plotz was the site's CEO for five years (October 2014 – November 2019). Warren Webster, former president and CEO of digital publisher Coveteur, and co-founder of website Patch , assumed the position in March 2020. [10]
In 2015, Atlas Obscura raised its first round of major funding, securing $2 million from a range of investors and angels including The New York Times . [6]
In September 2016, the company published its first book, Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders written by Foer, Thuras, and Ella Morton under Workman Publishing Company. [11] [12]
Following a second fundraising effort that netted $7.5 million, in late 2017 the site launched Gastro Obscura, a food section covering "the distinctive food locations of the world." [13]
In 2019, Series B funding round raised $20 million from investors like Airbnb (lead investor), A+E Networks and New Atlantic Ventures. [14] [15]
Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick and salty meat extract paste, similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar and as cubes and granules. Bovril is owned and distributed by Unilever UK. Its appearance is similar to the British Marmite and its Australian equivalent Vegemite; however, unlike these products, Bovril is not suitable for vegetarians.
Láadan is a gynocentric constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. The language was included in her science fiction Native Tongue series. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. According to Elgin, this is designed to counter male-centered language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this".
Emergency Government Headquarters is the name given for a system of nuclear fallout shelters built by the Government of Canada in the 1950s and 1960s as part of continuity of government planning at the height of the Cold War. Situated at strategic locations across the country, the largest of these shelters are popularly referred to as "Diefenbunkers", a nickname coined by federal opposition politicians during the early 1960s. The nickname was derived from the last name of the Prime Minister of the day, John Diefenbaker, who authorized their construction. Over fifty facilities were built along several designs for various classes of service.
Kugelmugel, officially the Republic of Kugelmugel, is a spherical art object located in Vienna, Austria.
Poveglia is a small island located between Venice and Lido in the Venetian Lagoon, of northern Italy. A small canal divides the island into two separate parts. The island first appears in the historical record in 421, and was populated until the residents fled warfare in 1379. For more than 100 years beginning in 1776, the island was used as a quarantine station for those suffering the plague and other diseases, and later as a mental hospital. The mental hospital closed in 1968, and the island has been vacant ever since. Because of its history, the island is frequently featured on paranormal shows.
Queimada is an alcoholic beverage of Galician tradition.
Joshua Foer is a freelance journalist and author living in Brookline, Massachusetts, with a primary focus on science. He was the 2006 USA Memory Champion, which was described in his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. He spoke at the TED conference in February 2012.
Lindisfarne Mead is a mead from Northumberland in North East England. It is manufactured in St Aidan's Winery on Holy Island. The mead is unusual in that it blends honey, the traditional main ingredient of mead, with grapes.
The N3 road is one of the national highways of Gabon. It connects to the east of the country along the centre. Towns located along the highway include:
In New York folklore, the Hudson River Monster or "Kipsy"—the latter being a pet name presumed to have derived from Poughkeepsie—is a reputed lake monster living in the Hudson River. In 2016, Atlas Obscura ranked "Kipsy" at #17 in its list of "Lake Monsters of the United States, 'Nessies.'"
Pumpkin-coconut custard is a Southeast Asian dessert, consisting of a coconut custard steam-baked in a whole pumpkin or kabocha. It was created by Maria Guyomar de Pinha in Ayutthaya Kingdom in 17th century as an adaptation of a Portuguese egg-based dessert.
The Guoliang Tunnel (Chinese: 郭亮洞) is carved along the side of and through a mountain in China. The tunnel links the village of Guoliang to the outside through the Taihang Mountains which are situated in Huixian, Xinxiang, Henan Province of China.
The Island of the Dolls is a chinampa of the Laguna de Tequila located in the channels of Xochimilco, south of the center of Mexico City, Mexico. It is notable for the multitude of dolls of various styles and colors that can be found throughout the island. Local legends surround the dolls and the island's reclusive former owner, Don Julián Santana Barrera, making the island a popular destination for dark tourism.
Ra Paulette is an American cave sculptor based in New Mexico who digs into hillsides to sculpt elaborate artistic spaces inside mountains. Since he began sculpting in 1990, he has dug over a dozen caves in New Mexico.
Matsuo Mine (松尾鉱山), was an iron and sulphur mine located in the village of Matsuo, Iwate Prefecture in the Tohoku region of northern Japan. The area is now part of the city of Hachimantai. The mine opened in 1914 and closed in 1979 leaving a ghost town behind.
The King's Ginger is an English liqueur by Berry Bros. & Rudd. The liqueur was originally created for King Edward VII. After his death in 1910, it was commissioned exclusively for the royal family. In 2011, it was standardized and made available to the public in select countries.
The "dinosaur of Ta Prohm" is a bas-relief in the Khmer Empire temple-monastery of Ta Prohm. Numerous reliefs of various different animals are present in the temple; the "dinosaur" is one of its more ambiguous artworks. The relief first gained modern notoriety in the late 1990s when the lobe-like features running down the animal's back were compared to the back plates of stegosaurian dinosaurs. The relief has since become a popular piece of "evidence" for the fringe belief that non-avian dinosaurs once coexisted with humans.
Benne wafers are thin sesame seed cookies with African origins. They are a traditional Lowcountry food most associated with South Carolina and its city, Charleston.
Haitian spaghetti is a dish of Haitian cuisine typically served for breakfast. It typically consists of spaghetti noodles and hot dogs in a sauce made from ketchup and epis.