Atlas Obscura
atlasobscura.com
Collaborative guide to the world's most unusual and overlooked places — over 25,000 destinations curated by a global community of explorers.
Atlas Obscura is a guide to unusual places around the world: hidden museums, strange monuments, natural oddities and out-of-the-way spots that most travel guides skip. Entries are submitted by a community of contributors and include a description, location and practical details, and you can browse by country or search near you.
It is as useful for armchair exploring as for planning a trip, since many entries come with a story about why the place exists. The site also publishes articles and runs paid tours and events. Check opening details before travelling, because small, unusual sites change hours often.
Why it is useful
Travel content is overwhelmingly focused on the most-photographed places. Atlas Obscura is the opposite — the underground cistern, the abandoned island, the world's only museum of a particular obscure thing. The community submission model means the database keeps growing.
More in Hidden Websites
Other hidden websites you might not have heard of.
- Neal.funCollection of interactive web experiments and games by developer Neal Agarwal.
- Library of Short StoriesFree collection of classic short stories from various authors in a simple reading format.
- AeonA digital magazine of ideas publishing essays and long-form articles in philosophy, science, society, and the arts from academics and public intellectuals.
- KagiA paid, ad-free search engine that ranks results by quality instead of ad revenue, with tools to boost or block specific domains yourself.
- OEISThe On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences: type in a few numbers and it tells you which sequences they match, along with formulas, references and code.
- xkcdRandall Munroe's webcomic covering science, mathematics, programming, linguistics, and culture — with 2,900+ strips ranging from genuinely instructive to profoundly absurd, updated three times a week.