Inspiring equal parts wonder and wanderlust, <i>Atlas Obscura</i> celebrates over 600 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. <br> <br> 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 literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 45-year hole of fire called the Door of Hell, coffins hanging off a side of a cliff in the Philippines, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches, still on display in Devon, England.<br> <br><i>Atlas Obscura</i> revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, maps for every region of the world, it is a book you can open anywhere. But with caution: It's almost impossible not to turn to the next entry, and the next, and the next.<br> <br> Let your curiosity be your compass.<br><br> "<b>I thought I had seen most of the interesting bits of the world. Atlas Obscura showed me that I was wrong. </b>It's the kind of book that makes you want to pack in your workaday life, and head out into the places you'd never have dreamed of going to see things you could not even have imagined. A joy to read and to reread."<br> --NEIL GAIMAN, author of <i>Sandman </i>and <i>American Gods</i> <br><br> "<i>Atlas Obscura</i> is a joyful antidote to the creeping suspicion that travel these days is little more than a homogenized corporate shopping opportunity ... .<b>Bestest travel guide ever.</b>"<br> - MARY ROACH, author of <i>Stiff </i>and <i>Gulp</i><br> <br> "<i>Atlas Obscura</i> may be the only thing that can still inspire me to leave my apartment ... this resource is <b>essential for exploring the world and engaging adventure with wit and style</b> (often from the comfort of my bed) ."<br> - LENA DUNHAM, creator of <i>Girls</i> and author of <i>Not That Kind of Girl</i><br> <br> "<b>My favorite travel guide!</b> Never start a trip without knowing where a haunted hotel or mouth of hell are!"<br> - GUILLERMO DEL TORO, filmmaker, <i>Pan's Labyrinth</i>
