Early polar explorers faced long nights and dangerous expeditions. To entertain themselves, they wrote and published niche newspapers and periodicals. Atlas Obscura’s community editor Allegra Rosenberg reads an essay exploring this unique polar tradition. Read her full essay here.  

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Chalet Cheese Cooperative in Monroe, Wisconsin is the last cheese plant left in America that makes the ultra-stinky Limburger cheese: a cheese that inspires equal parts loving and loathing, has been banned for its assaulting smell, and that once sparked a feud between two cities.

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A few weeks ago, the Atlas Obscura staff told us where they would spend their last days before the apocalypse. Now we’re sharing your stories – from a childhood home in a small town in Illinois, to a trip in Eastern Europe, to a pizzeria in Brooklyn and a cave in Utah. ...

The grooves cut in this road outside Lancaster, CA play the finale of the William Tell Overture. 

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/civic-musical-road

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If you were to visit a cigar factory in Cuba, you’d hear something unexpected: the sound of the daily news report, or maybe a poem or a novel, being read aloud. The cigar “reader” is a tradition held by just a handful of people, and it came from a fundamentally revolutionary idea. Eliot Stein, author of Custodians of Wonder, joins Dylan to explain.

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One of the many objects that went down with the ship during the sinking of the Titanic was a beautiful, jewel-encrusted edition of a poetry book called the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.” The Rubaiyat was probably the most famous work of poetry in the English-speaking world at that time…which was somewhat unusual, as the book was written by a Persian mathematician 800 years before.

For more information about Omar Khayyam and the Rubaiyat, check out the books “Persian Presence in Victorian Poetry” by Taher-Kermani Reza, “The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam” by Mehdi Aminrazavi, and the BBC documentary “The Genius of Omar Khayyam.” 

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In Antarctica, researchers bid farewell to an iconic fixture: a big red bus named Ivan. 

Want to learn more about Ivan? Read Allegra Rosenberg’s article all about him.

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To round out Pride Month, we’re sharing one of our favorite classic episodes. For decades, a one of a kind travel guide opened up the world for gay travelers. Today, historians are using them to create an interactive map of LGBTQ spaces in midcentury America.

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Let’s all go to hell. Seriously. Hell, Michigan, that is :)

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hell-michigan

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In an homage to the 1995 movie Four Rooms, Dylan talks with historian Susan Wilson about how the history of Boston – and the United States at large – was influenced by events that occurred in four different rooms of the iconic Omni Parker House Hotel.   
 

This episode was recorded live at the WBUR Festival in Boston on May 31, 2025. 

Check out Susan Wilson’s books and her other work on her website.

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A couple months ago, we asked for your stories about traveling with a significant other for the first time. We got so many responses, that we decided to make a Part II. 

 

Plus, we want to hear your questions about travel and dating! In a few weeks, we’ll have dating expert Eden Dawn on the show to dish out answers. Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and question. Or record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com.

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In a small rural town in Colombia, one man mounts books on the backs of donkeys and takes to the hills. This is how he operates his bookmobile, aka “Biblioburro.” 

For more information about where to support Luis Soriano’s Biblioburro, visit booksforchangeusa.org

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The TV show Columbo, about a loveable schlub detective, is internationally beloved. But Hungary has an extra special relationship with the show, dating all the way back to the 1970s when the communist government banned most other American shows.

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A majestic building in Santos, Brazil used to be the center of the coffee trade. 

Go deeper with professor Ian Read’s work here and read more in the Atlas here.

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For decades, the Ashley House in Sheffield, Massachusetts preserved and promoted the story of Col. John Ashley, a wealthy businessman who opened his home to those fighting against British rule on the eve of America’s war for independence. But in this episode we hear a new narrative, about an enslaved woman and true patriot who tested the rhetoric of the revolution.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ashley-house

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The National Library of Sweden is home to the largest medieval manuscript still in existence: an enormous, three-foot-tall Bible with an unusual portrait of the devil inside (along with a calendar, some spells, and a lengthy confession of the writer’s sins and temptations). Legend has it that it was created by a monk under duress over the course of one evening… with some supernatural help.
 

Check out more about the Codex Gigas online.

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Fifteen years ago, drones were considered toys. Today, there’s everywhere – both in the news and physically. But before the big splashy news stories like the recent New Jersey drone panic, a much quieter – and stranger – incident took place at a highly secure Air Force base. 

Read more of Gordon Lubold’s reporting.

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Dylan and producers Johanna and Amanda take your questions. 

For our next mailbag, we’re looking for questions about solo travel. If you have a question for Dylan about traveling by yourself, 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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We want to hear about your favorite unusual local date spots. One rule: No romantic restaurants! Where are the places that you bust out when you’re really trying to impress someone with an obscure, off the beaten track spot? And, we want to hear your questions about travel and dating, cause we'll have an expert on the show soon to dish out answers. Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Our mailbox will cut you off after 3 minutes so please call back if you get disconnected. Or record and send a voice memo to Hello@AtlasObscura.Com.

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A midwest city has embraced what it means to be the namesake hometown of one very famous superhero. And at its center is a museum that holds the carefully cultivated collection of one superfan. 

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/super-museum-metropolis

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In the 1960s, the band the Grateful Dead became consumed by a quest that would take up 10 years, cost millions of dollars, and almost break up the band. It was the quest for audio perfection – to bring crystal clear sound from the front row to the nosebleeds and back again. It’s a story that takes us from the infamous acid tests of the 1960s to standing in front of a 60-foot tall wall of 600 speakers…and to tell it we’re joined by Brian Anderson, author of “Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection.”

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The staff here at Atlas Obscura answered an unsettling question for this episode: Where would you spend the last day before the apocalypse? Some interesting truths come out. 

Plus, we want to hear from you. Tell us where YOU would spend your last day before the hypothetical apocalypse. What connection do you have with this place? Why would you spend it there? What would you do if you had the whole place to yourself? Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Or record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com

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An ancient book contains a controversial Greek recipe, one of the earliest examples of patent law, and answers for a perennial problem: how to make conversation at a dinner party. 

Learn more about Deipnosophistae. 

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The Haskell Free Library and Opera House sits half in Canada, half in the United States. For over a century, it was a symbol of friendship between the two nations. Then, the library got caught in the crossfire of a much bigger struggle.

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We visit one of California’s longest-running tourist attractions: A giant stump that helped spark the movement to preserve the state’s natural places.

For more unusual stories, lists, and offbeat itineraries, check out the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to the National Parks.

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On a summer day in 1976, four friends had a strange experience in the Northwoods of Maine that would come back to haunt them decades later. Today, we’re exploring the hidden morbid side of the national parks system with our friends from National Park After Dark. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

For more unusual stories, lists, and offbeat itineraries, check out the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to the National Parks.

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We visit a mysterious sinkhole in Arizona that has befuddled an exclusive group of divers who’ve gotten a glimpse of a strange world at its sandy bottom. For more unusual stories, lists, and offbeat itineraries, check out the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to the National Parks. 

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A 50-square-mile patch of Yellowstone National Park in Idaho might just be the perfect place to commit a crime. For more unusual stories, lists, and offbeat itineraries, check out the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to the National Parks. 

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In March of 2024, a park ranger and volunteer were taking their regular walk together around Big Bend National Park. They came across a teeny tiny fuzzy little plant with unusual ribbon-like flowers bursting out of the center – something neither of them had ever seen before. As it turned out, they had stumbled on a rare scientific discovery.

 

Learn more about the woolly devil, and check out iNaturalist.

 

For more unusual stories, lists, and offbeat itineraries, check out the Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to the National Parks.

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Spring is a popular time to visit Colonial Williamsburg, not least because it’s “lambing season,” the time of year when baby lambs are born and take their first steps (which is obviously very, very cute). But small as they are, these lambs have a big baaa-ckstory (sorry) – they are part of a breed that was once guarded like a trade secret, was smuggled into the American colonies, went extinct in the US in the early 20th century, and then was brought back right here at Colonial Williamsburg. This episode was produced in partnership with Visit Williamsburg. 

Find out more at Visit Williamsburg. 

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