The Atlas Obscura Podcast

When a 180-year old bur oak tree collapsed during a rainstorm, a couple in Minnesota made a new life for it.  Plus: How many U.S. states have you visited? Join the AO community and create your own U.S. state tracker map here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/my-state-map    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for a...

Travel to Penobscot, Maine, where one farmer maintains the tradition of burning his crop each year to rejuvenate it the next. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Over the course of its 200 year history, the lighthouse on Wood Island in Maine has been home to a celebrity dog, a grisly murder, some mischievous ghosts, and a monster storm that may or may not have been brought on by a pickpocket’s curse. Learn more about Wood Island Lighthouse on their website (here’s Richard’s book .) Want to hear more stories of mega storms, heroic sea rescues, and maybe eve...

A couple decades ago, Jason Williams was working at a local restaurant in Portland, Maine. One day he was driving around to farmers markets looking for ingredients, when he found a special place. And it gave him a big idea… It's Maine Week on the show, so every day we're introducing you to someone from that great state — people who live, and work, and get inspired by Maine’s rugged beauty. This ep...

Since settling down in the small town of Union, Maine, the Japanese-born ceramicist Hanako Nakazato has shaped her pieces around her endlessly surprising, largely untouched environment.  It's Maine Week on the show, so every day we're introducing you to someone from that great state — people who live, and work, and get inspired by Maine’s rugged beauty. This episode was produced in partnership wit...

We meet Becky Sigwright, who captains a wind-powered boat that’s been sailing around Maine since before the invention of the telephone.  It's Maine Week on the show, so every day we're introducing you to someone from that great state — people who live, and work, and get inspired by Maine’s rugged beauty. This episode was produced in partnership with the Maine Office of Tourism. Hosted by Simplecas...

We're working on a listener-powered episode about travel resolutions and we want to hear yours! What are you hoping to change about the way you travel or move through the world? What inspired this resolution? Maybe you wanna travel to a new continent. Maybe you are learning a new language for an upcoming trip. Maybe you are planning to be more adventurous and less organized about where you’re goin...

Experience the Orfield Anechoic Chamber: a room inside a concrete bunker that was once known as the quietest place on earth. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama bills itself as “the nation’s only retailer of lost luggage.” If you’ve ever lost a bag during air travel, it probably wound up there - along with many other treasures and oddities. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We go to the Westman Islands off the southern coast of Iceland and meet the heroes who save young birds that have wandered from their nests every summer.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We get out our passports and visit The Republic of Slowjamastan, a nation built on good vibes, good music and a dream of eliminating one very popular type of footwear.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hear from the caretakers of a ghost town in Bolivia that was once the world's highest ski resort.   READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/abandoned-chacaltaya-ski-resort Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In honor of Lucia Day on December 13, we’re diving into the origins of a Swedish holiday tradition which evolved from sinister pagan lore to a celebration of light, warmth and music. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

About 400 miles south of New Zealand, on the subantarctic Campbell Island / Motu Ihupuku, stands a Sitka spruce whose nearest neighbor is 170 miles away. READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/worlds-loneliest-tree Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Gastro Obscura’s senior editor Sam O’Brien returns to the podcast to go deeper with us on her strange beat – recipes etched into gravestones. We probe how food can help heal and remember those we’ve lost. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We visit the taverns of colonial America to take a frothy sip of the hot ale flip and how it helped pave the way for contemporary mixology.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Empress Anna’s Ice Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia was the site of an incredibly strange wedding. Was it a cruel joke? A strategic power move? Or something else? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mexico City is known for its museum and art scene. The collection at El Museo del Juguete Antiguo – The Antique Toy Museum – encourages visitors to lean into their imaginations – and reflect on the rich history and culture in this city. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is how you do Christmas in the desert. Every year, the city of Chandler, Arizona creates a Christmas Tree made entirely of the diaspore of this Western plant.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Seltzer has been around for thousands of years. And one factory in Brooklyn, New York called the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys is preserving the history of this simple drink.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Around 60 people live full time in the town of Helvetia, West Virginia. But once a year, the population swells to 20 times its size – when masked revelers dressed as moons, suns, monsters, possums, and everything in between descend. This is Fasnacht, a Swiss-German celebration of Fat Tuesday that was brought to the area by immigrants in the 19th century. In the 20th, Fasnacht almost died out…befor...

In the early 1920s, walking around Orange, New Jersey at night, you might have seen young women coming out of a factory, with hair, skin and clothes softly glowing in the dark. Some called them “ghost girls.” Newspapers would later call them “radium girls” because the glow on these women came from radium-based paint that they used to make glow-in-the-dark watches for the US Radium Corporation. The...

When you think of Orlando, Florida and the area around it, a certain cartoon mouse might come to mind. But in recent decades the area has also become a destination for Latin American food and culture. Today we visit Coqui Snacks, a cozy snack shop in Kissimmee offering up classic Puerto Rican comfort foods…including a popsicle called a limber, which has a surprising connection to aviator Charles L...

You can learn a lot about a person from their hands. In this episode, we hear the story of a doctor who made it possible for us to hold onto the stories of presidents, astronauts, musicians, artists and more… through bronze molds of their hands.  READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/adrian-e-flatt-m-d-hand-collection Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz....

Gastro Obscura writer Sam O’Brien takes co-host Kelly McEvers on a tour of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous tributes to the turkey – and makes her case for why these big, beautiful birds are worth paying attention to.        Read Sam’s article on the history of the turkey: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-the-turkey-thanksgiving Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company...