Dylan has just returned from a month-long trip with his family, and he and the gang answer listener questions about traveling with kids and more. 

Have a question for Dylan? Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message. You can also record a voice memo and email it to us at Hello@AtlasObscura.com, or simply email your question.   

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Listeners share stories about how they commute to work and back home as they also reflect on how special their neighborhood is too.  Plus: We wanna hear stories about your first time traveling with your kids.  Tell us about that experience - where did you and your ...

Earlier this year a geologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science got a very unusual phone call. A construction crew ripping up the museum’s parking lot had found… dinosaur bones. We dig deeper and get a taste of what it would have been like to visit the Denver area during the Cretaceous Period. 

See the parking lot dino fossil: https://www.dmns.org/science/research/parking-lot-dinosaur/

Check out the rock slab that “shows” the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event: https://coloradosprings.dmns.org/dmnshomepage/catalyst/fall-2024/recorded-in-stone-single-worst-day-for-multicellular-life-on-earth//

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For years, students at Bennington College snuck into a locked room for a glimpse of strange and magical instruments created by professor Gunnar Schonbeck. Today, we join his orchestra. 

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/no-experience-required

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Henry S. Rosenthal is the owner of what is likely the world’s largest collection of two-headed taxidermied calves. The collection is in San Francisco, and you can reach out to Henry at deepgort@gmail.com to make arrangements to see it.

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Ota Tofu in Portland, Oregon is the oldest tofu shop in the United States. Two brothers opened the shop in 1911 and even today their tofu is still made the old-fashioned way, using a labor-intensive process that is difficult to find (even in Japan!). 
 

Learn more about Ota Tofu: https://www.otapdx.com/

And check out the work of guest Lauren Yoshiko:  http://laurenyoshiko.com/

 

This episode was produced in partnership with Travel Portland. 

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From opera singers to strange noises emitting from air conditioners, listeners share stories about their unusual neighbors.  Plus:  We want to hear stories about your commute. Are there people that you see on the train platform everyday, but still remain a stranger...

In ancient Athens, citizens would gather at the Agora, or marketplace, for a specific purpose: to vote people off the island – er, out of the city. 

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There are thousands of varieties of citrus, many more than just the navel oranges. And they’re all being preserved in a collection at the University of California Riverside. Learn more here.

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Rolando Pujol is an executive producer at ABC, but his true passion is for roadside attractions. And he’s got a new book all about it titled The Great American Retro Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana. He and Dylan nerd out about Muffler Men, mimetic architecture, and Pizza Hut Classics. 

Plus: If you have a favorite roadside attraction, give us a call at (315) 992-7902 and leave us a message telling us your name and story. Or email us a voice memo at hello@atlasobscura.com. Tell us what it is. Where is i? What memory do you have about this attraction? And why do you love it?

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Counterculture icon… artist… nun? A new art center has opened up in downtown LA dedicated to the work of Corita Kent, also known as Sister Mary Corita, a nun and art teacher whose bright, colorful, and political Pop Art prints made her famous in the 1960s…and also got her in big trouble with the church.

 

Pay a visit to the Corita Art Center next time you’re in LA! Or: driving through Boston? Keep your eyes peeled for Rainbow Swash. 

 

For more on Corita and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, check out the Rebel Hearts documentary. And if you need some inspiration, here’s the art department rules Corita posted in her classroom at Immaculate Heart College. 

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We remember Bill Dilworth, who took care of 280,000 pounds of dirt in an NYC loft for 35 years.
 

Plus: Preorder your copy of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to Inventing the World today!

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Today’s show is all about unusual dating spots. And to help, Eden Dawn, co-author of The Portland Book of Dates and The Seattle Book of Dates, joins Dylan to answer some of your questions about travel and dating. 

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A South Carolina ghost story is a harbinger of hurricanes and a window into history. All this week, the Atlas Obscura Podcast is hitting the sand, and taking a tour of the world’s most unusual beaches.  

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We follow a long set of wooden stairs deep underground to a sea cave with a mysterious and colorful past, and take in a spectacular, hidden view of the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla. 

Learn more about The Cave Store: https://www.cavestore.com/

All this week, the Atlas Obscura Podcast is hitting the sand, and taking a tour of the world’s most unusual beaches.  

Plus: Pre-order your copy of our new book, The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to Inventing the World, today! 

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Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town in South Africa is a destination where sunbathers, tourists, and penguins share both the beach and parts of the town. 
 

All this week, the Atlas Obscura Podcast is hitting the sand, and taking a tour of the world’s most unusual beaches.

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This beautiful beach made of sand and worn down coral is covered in the wreckage of tanks once used by the U.S. military for target practice. 
 

All this week, the Atlas Obscura Podcast is hitting the sand, and taking a tour of the world’s most unusual beaches. 

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In 2006 a massive haul of Doritos was shipwrecked on Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks, leaving its mark on the town forever. All this week, the Atlas Obscura Podcast is hitting the sand, and taking a tour of the world’s most unusual beaches.  

 

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A couple created what is perhaps the cutest and most filling micro-store to pop up during the pandemic. But to find it, you’ll have to trek through rural Vermont and look for the phone-booth sized box filled with baked goods.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tiny-bread-box

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In the 1800s, people flocked to a special gravestone in New York City’s Trinity Churchyard. They left flowers and cards and even wept. But there was one strange thing about this gravestone: No one was buried beneath it. 

Read more about Charlotte Temple in Allegra Rosenberg’s article. 

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We share stories about our neighbors – from an unusual pet in Maryland, to an out-of-place front yard in Brooklyn, to a beekeeper with a secret. 

Plus: We want to hear YOUR neighbor stories! Tell us about your neighbors’ yards, their house decor, their habits – and what you like about them. Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and favorite story about your neighbors. Or you can record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com

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An elite group of ravens live at the Tower of London, anxiously monitored and lovingly tended to by a professional ravenmaster. Because according to legend, if these ravens were ever to leave, the crown of England would fall. But it turns out this “ancient” legend is a relatively recent invention.

More on the one historian’s investigations into the legend’s origins can be found in this paper and in the book City of Ravens: The Extraordinary History of London, its Tower and Its Famous Ravens.

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Today, we’re sharing an episode from our new podcast documentary series, Charlie’s Place. 

Beloved, notorious, defiant, folk hero – these are just a few ways to describe Charlie Fitzgerald, the entrepreneur who owned an integrated nightclub during Jim Crow in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. What happened in Myrtle Beach at Charlie’s would come to define a community and generations to come. This is the almost forgotten history of Charlie’s Place.

Charlie's Place is a production of Atlas Obscura and Rococo Punch in partnership with Pushkin Industries and presented by Visit Myrtle Beach. 

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A small cemetery in the grasslands of Kenya serves as a way to honor one of the most endangered animals in the world – the rhino – and elevate the plight of a species on the brink. 

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ol-pejeta-rhino-cemetery

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A French curator infiltrates a Nazi army to save masterpieces from the Jeu De Paume museum. 

Read more in Michelle Young’s new book, The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland.

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A map in the archives of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library in Portland, Oregon may be the key to finding buried treasure that has yet to be found. This episode was produced in partnership with Travel Portland.

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In 1975, a man in Seward, Nebraska dug a gigantic hole in his yard and made the world’s largest time capsule. On July 4, 2025, the capsule was opened. 

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Dylan and producers Johanna and Amanda answer listener questions about solo travel. Have a question for Dylan? Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message. You can also record a voice memo and email it to us at Hello@AtlasObscura.com, or simply email your question.    

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A Seattle restaurant pushes diners to eat beyond their borders through its embrace of global street foods.

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The Pan-American Highway is considered the longest road in the world – it stretches nearly 20,000 miles, from Alaska to Argentina. In her new docuseries Pati Jinich Explores PanAmericana, Pati talks with people along the famous route about the different ways we form our identities. And she was particularly interested in exploring this territory because of her own unique cultural background.  

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