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Why We Love It

Horror. Adventure. Noir. For the first time, your life can actually smell like the genre you wish it was!

Eric Grundhauser Senior Producer
EricGrundhauser

Movie Genre Candles

$48
Why We Love It

This paean to bovine beauty features photographs of 105 of the world's most amazing cows. Moo.

The Cow: A Tribute

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

While the beauty of brutalist and concrete architecture still stirs controversy, there's no debate about the beauty of these well designed and wonderfully informative maps from the talented cartographers at Blue Crow Media.

Brutalist and Concrete Maps

$47
Why We Love It

The perfect gift for your favorite member of The Finer Things Club, this “Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights” covers everything from Aerostation, i.e. the art of hot air ballooning to Xiguo Jifa, the art of memory.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Whether you’re a veteran backcountry skier or a backyard builder, this instructive yet whimsical manual will take you through the process of constructing and inhabiting a range of useful snow structures.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

How to Build an Igloo and Other Snow Shelters

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Puzzle boxes are one of my favorites things. I want to be buried in a puzzle box. This one not only looks beautiful and shows off some of its incredible gears, but you even get to build it yourself! 

Eric Grundhauser Senior Producer
EricGrundhauser

Mechanical Wooden Puzzle Box

$45
Why We Love It

Dozens of towns around the world that have given themselves over to books and bookshops, and with this guide you can imagine visiting them all!

Sarah Laskow Senior Writer
Sarah Laskow

Book Towns: Forty Five Paradises of the Printed Word

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

In the recent past, owning a copy of Les Diners de Gala, Salvador Dali’s rare and eccentric cookbook, cost upwards of $400. Now you can buy it for much less, thanks to a Taschen reprint. With recipes ranging from fast-acting cocktails to lambs brain with avocado to a royal peacock...

Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist Cookbook

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A surreal watch for surreal times.

Salvador Dali Watch

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Calamityware offers classic porcelain in throughly modern patterns. This plate featuring a streaking Sasquatch is just one of many playful examples.

Calamityware Porcelain

$42
Why We Love It

In the era of pods, the stovetop coffee machine has become an endangered species. Get this iconic Italian kitchen appliance while you still can.

The Original Bialetti Moka Express

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A hilarious and practical guide by the creator of Dinosaur Comics and writer of Adventure Time, Ryan North! In just 464 pages, you'll learn how to quickly replicate humanity's achievements, just in case you ever accidentally get sent back in time.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Bring out a porrón at your next dinner party for a wonderful display of wine-drinking might. In Spanish tradition, the glass pitcher is filled with wine or cider, lifted near (but never touching) the drinker's mouth, and quickly tipped to start pouring as they extend their arm away. As seen on...

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Porrón

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Everyone needs a trebuchet because everyone also occasionally needs to fling things.

Wooden Trebuchet Kit

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A favorite toy of my young nephew, even if he did “accidentally” steer it into a losing battle with a ceiling fan.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Remote Control Flying Shark

$35
Why We Love It

Not only are they beautiful miniature works of art, these space-themed lollipops open a world of pun possibilities. Some suggestions: “I love you to the moon and back” and “I thank my lucky stars for you!”

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Galaxy Lollipops

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A walking dad joke if there was ever one.

Freudian Slippers

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

I recently received this as a gift. My friend just told me she'd gotten me a notebook, so it was a very cool and startling surprise to be blinded by light when I opened it. I felt like I'd found a magic artifact.

Abi Inman Senior Audience Development Manager
AbiInman

Wooden Folding Book Light

$30
Why We Love It

Sink into an armchair and cozy up to this special book filled with colorful flap caps, scarves, and rare mitten patterns. Through the work captured in this book, the two local authors aim to keep the tradition and culture of Newfoundland knitting alive.

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Saltwater Mittens from the Island of Newfoundland

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Penned by an impassioned ichthyologist, this book is a surprisingly amusing and delightfully obscure read.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Civilian space tourism isn’t quite ready for blast-off. In the meantime, this poster—which evokes the slew of 1930s-era Works Progress Administration posters that touted America’s national parks—can help armchair astronauts’ imaginations take flight.

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer
jessicahester1

Space Tourism Travel Poster

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

This is a stunningly detailed pop-up book that can morph into a planetarium, an infinite calendar, a message encoder, and more. Super cool.

Blake Olmstead Head of Design
Blake

Extraordinary Pop-Up Contraptions

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

The Manhattan leg of the New York City subway system distilled to its essence—each dot represents a station on this elegantly minimalist poster.

Minimalist Manhattan Subway Map Poster

$25
Why We Love It

This salt lamp provides a beautiful dreamlike glow that helps you wind down and drift off to sleep feeling relaxed. I’ve gifted one to practically all of my girlfriends. If I were Oprah, it would definitely be one of my favorite things.

Sheila Baker Designer
Sheila Baker

Himalayan Salt Lamp

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A surviving, signature concession from the now defunct Crystal Beach Amusement Park in Fort Erie, Ontario, loganberry drink is sweet, tart, and an intensely dark purple.

PJ's Crystal Beach Loganberry Drink

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Spend a peaceful minute watching ferrous sand, glass, gravity, and magnetism combine to form a spectacle of stalagmites that shifts with each passing second.

Magnetic Hourglass

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

The Spomenik Database is a catalog that aims to “explore and demystify” the stunning concrete monuments built across Balkan states in the mid 20th century. These “spomeniks” are often taken out of context in Western media, but their histories are as fascinating as their design.

Abi Inman Senior Audience Development Manager
AbiInman

Spomenik Monument Database

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

I recently had the phenomenal opportunity to staff Atlas Obscura's Death Valley astronomy and night photography trip alongside Tyler Nordgren, an incredibly talented astronomer and artist. Tyler has not only spent years working with the National Park Service on public science and astronomy education—including writing a book on the subject—but...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Space Art Posters

$20
Why We Love It

Protein-packed chips that come in several flavors, are extremely tasty, and just happen to be made out of crickets.

Cara Giaimo Staff Writer
Cara Giaimo

Cricket Protein Chips

$20
Why We Love It

Armchair travel meets tin foil hats in this gorgeously designed book documenting sites around the U.S. where UFOs have been spotted. It’s a photographic road trip through E.T. visitation past and present.

Blake Olmstead Head of Design
Blake

UFO Presences

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A timeless practical joke in the form of a wine glass. Designed by an ancient Greek philosopher, it functions like a normal wine glass but spills everywhere when over-filled by the gluttonous.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Pythagorean Wine Glass

$20
Why We Love It

This bubblegum-hued, peppermint-flavored pig is a Christmas Day tradition in Saratoga Springs, New York. After placing the pink porker in a velvet pouch, each family member gives it a thwack with an accompanying tiny metal mallet and shares a story of their good fortune from the past year. Once everyone...

Sam O'Brien
Sam OBrien

Peppermint Pig

$20
Why We Love It

The Spill Not is both an ingenious demonstration of centripetal force and a foolproof way for a drunkard to carry around his preferred beverage.

Joshua Foer Co-Founder
Josh

The Incredible Spill Not

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

The same grass that feeds massive European bison adds notes of vanilla and lavender to this unique Polish vodka, which includes a blade of grass in the bottle. As featured on Gastro Obscura.

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Bison Grass Vodka

$19
Why We Love It

Internationally-renowned photographer Matt Lambros traveled across the United States to document the country's abandoned theaters—from the supposedly haunted Pacific Warner Theatre in Los Angeles to the Orpheum Theatre in New Bedford, MA. 

After the Final Curtain: America's Abandoned Theaters

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A spindly twig that predicts the weather? Think what you will, it's probably just as accurate as your smartphone weather app, or, for that matter, Karen from Mean Girls. Made from "weather-detecting" balsam fir, this elegant 14-inch pseudo-meteorological device curves upwards for clear skies or downwards for rain and snow....

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Weather Stick

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Earthlings have gazed at the dark, star-speckled sky for millennia, and this box of postcards compiles 50 impressions, from the scientific—such images plumbed from Galileo’s notebooks or the NASA archives—to the fanciful.

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer
jessicahester1

Night Sky Postcards

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

The definitive guide to fermentation by the decade's definitive chef.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

The Noma Guide to Fermentation

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

From early computer programmers to the “girl gamers” of the 1990s, Claire Evans does an incredible job of highlighting the important women who are often left out of conventional tellings of internet history. I just finished this book and can see their influence everywhere now—not just in the internet as...

Lex Berko Senior Editor
lexberko

Broad Band

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

If there’s nothing more terrifying to you than a blank page, and plain old horizontal lines feel more like prison than prompt, try this notebook of unusual graph paper. Guaranteed to shift your perspective with each new page.

Grids & Guides: A Notebook for Visual Thinkers

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

This clever bandana turn the most versatile bit of travel gear into the most informative. Printed on the bandana are guides to NATO phonetic code words, Morse code, sign language, and more.

Blake Olmstead Head of Design
Blake

Cipher Bandana

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

When I was a kid, I used to charge my older cousins fees for returning borrowed books late. This personal library kit would have made cataloging my collection a whole lot easier.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Personal Library Kit

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Pass the time by putting together a puzzle representation of Frank Lloyd Wright's unique home, Fallingwater. Between piecing together the blueprints and the house's iconic look, it's bound to amaze the architecture lover in your life.

Samantha Chong Associate Director, Audience Development
samanthachong

Frank Lloyd Wright Double Sided Puzzle

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

There's nothing like a few drinks to bring a bookclub together, and even better if they're literary themed. With concoctions classically entitled Vermouth the Bell Tolls and Romeo and Julep, you'll get the bookworm party started right.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Baboons do it unashamedly. Coral snakes do it in defense. Parrots don't do it at all. Find out which animals fart and which animals don't in this oddly detailed book.

Does It Fart?

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

This newly annotated edition of the classic wrests the text from English majors and hands it to STEMers, but also brings the concerns of literature—moral weight, literary device, creativity—to readers at risk of underestimating their importance.

Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Perfect for both kids and avian-inclined adults, this beautiful box set takes your standard memory game to the next level by highlighting the visual differences in 25 male and female bird pairs.

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Match a Pair of Birds: A Memory Game

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Color-changing, camouflaging, ink-cloud concealing cephalopods are basically the closest thing we have on earth to real-life shapeshifters. I loved learning all about these mysterious creatures from cephalopod expert—and AO trip leader—Sarah MacAnulty, all while calmly coloring the tentacles of a giant squid. 

Rachel Bouton Program Manager, Group and Co-Branded Experiences
rachelbouton

The Ink-credible Cephalopod Coloring Book

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

What better way to stay in touch with the far corners of capitalism than by having obscure industry trade journals sent to your door? My last issues of Elevator World and American Laundry News were positively scintillating.

Joshua Foer Co-Founder
Josh

Niche Trade Journal Subscription

$15
Why We Love It

Enjoy the illusion of motion with the 18 included picture strips, or become an amateur animator by drawing your own.

Zoetrope

$15
Why We Love It

Beep Boop. Beep Boop. Beep Boop. Beep Boop. I'm an adorable, little tin can robot. Beep Boop.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Tin Can Robot

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Learn the basics of photography and make beautiful shadow prints using just the sun, water, and this light sensitive paper.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Sun Art Paper Kit

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Invented in France 1955, the wood-handled N°06 is the smallest Opinel pocket knife to feature the manufacturer's iconic locking safety ring.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

French Opinel N°06

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

An exploration of the ways panoramic photography was used in the early 20th century United States, capturing  and memorializing everything from majestic landscapes to work picnics to man-made disasters.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

The Big Picture: America in Panorama

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Discover worlds unseen with this beginner field microscope! Perfect for leaves, bugs, and drops of pond water teeming with life.

Pocket Microscope

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A wall clock pared down to the essentials. Hang it as-is in your minimalist living room, our surround it with family photos for a different looks entirely.

Minimalist Wall Clock

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Tuck these tiny wind-up butterflies into an old book or a birthday card and watch the recipient's surprise as they suddenly fly away.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Magic Butterflies

$13
Why We Love It

Hide your most important secrets deep in your bookcase. If you're a bibliophile, this book safe will fool the most cunning of thieves.

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Book Diversion Safe

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

If you love books, you're predisposed to loving fonts, considering as no book would exist without them. This font-astically fascinating book does a deep dive into how a font is created, dispersed, used, and misused (including anachronistically!), and it will having you looking at words on a page with a...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A feat of human invention and ingenuity in the service of laziness, these spectacles function like a periscope to allow you to watch TV (or read) while lying in bed.

Bed Spectacles

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

What Oreos are to milk, these French cookies are to Champagne. Residents of Reims have been dunking these millennial pink biscuits in bubbly for over 300 years.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Le Biscuit Roses de Reims

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Bringing seafood on a long-haul flight may irritate your seatmate for reasons of malodorousness. Solution: shrimp pillow. This soft and comfy neck-encircler brings all the appeal of the briny sea with none of the rough surfaces associated with actual crustaceans.

Ella Morton Contributing Editor
Ella Morton

Shrimp Travel Pillow

$12
Why We Love It

With a bit of time and patience, you can have your own miniature wind-powered robot just like the large scale ones made by Dutch artist Theo Jansen.

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

Strandbeest Model Kit

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

“Who doesn't want a dose of existentialism with their egg nog?” — Tamara, Seattle, Washington

Existentialist Holiday Ornaments

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Each of the cards in this deck holds a low-stakes challenge. Accept it, and you’ll find yourself paying attention to the shifting textures of the terrain under your feet, keeping watch for circles and squares, or spreading out a picnic in an unexpected place. Pack a few for your next...

Jessica Leigh Hester Senior Editor + Writer
jessicahester1

Anywhere Travel Guide

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Stay a safe distance from creepy-crawlers with this one-handed, bug-catching tool and 5x magnifying lens. After a good, close look, initiate the quick-release and send your insect friend unharmed and on its way.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Bug Catching Tool and Magnifier

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Give a classic arcade feel to any rocker-style light switch. No electrical wiring (or quarters) needed.

Arcade Light Switch Plate Cover

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

This unique pen lets you mix Cyan, Magenta and Yellow inks to achieve a wide range of colors with a minimal amount of supplies. Perfect for bringing a splash of color to your quick doodles in the field, or color coding your notes.

CMYK Ballpoint Pen

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

See your home and neighborhood through the eyes of the bad guy with this fascinatingly in-depth look at the methods experienced burglars use to "case the joint".

A Burglar's Guide to the City

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

The perfect accessory for your next cemetery cocktail party, make any drink more curious with skull-shaped ice.

Paula Mejia Gastro Obscura Associate Editor
paulamejia

Skull Ice Cube Trays

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Knowing your way around rope is like having a secret super power. This little knot-tying set is the perfect pocket-sized introduction to mastering friction, tension, and strain. You'll have the most able set of hands at any camp site, boat dock, or rock face. 

Knot Tying Kit

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Are those human molars or piranha incisors? Is that a tail or a snout? Are the eyeballs supposed to be on the back of the head, and why are they different sizes? These are all valid questions to ask when leafing through this unconventional, pocket-size coffee table book—guaranteed to draw...

Tao Tao Holmes Director of Special Projects, Experiences
taotaoholmes

Crap Taxidermy

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Ever notice how the self-appointed hero often only makes matters worse? Show you're not someone in need of rescuing with this bold enamel pin.

Self-Rescuing Princess Enamel Pin

$10
Why We Love It

This 24-hour video of construction workers continually rebuilding the time out of lumber and bolts is a mesmerizing piece of art. I took an old smartphone, installed this app, and now have a beautifully strange clock on my wall.

Joshua Foer Co-Founder
Josh

Standard Time App

$10
Why We Love It

Combine a ship in a bottle, a sea monster, and an enamel pin and you're going to have some very smitten Atlas Obscura employees. What's not to love?

Jordan Schultz Director of Marketing & Audience
schultjh

Ship in a Bottle Attacked by Sea Monster Enamel Pin

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Deceptively complex, this wooden puzzle ball is as beautiful to look at as it is challenging to solve.

Wooden Puzzle Ball

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

We spotted a very stylish Atlas Obscura event attendee donning this world map necklace. What a wonderful statement piece for a travel-minded fashionista!

Larissa Hayden
larissahayden

World Map Necklace

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Love table-top and role-playing games? Pin and share that love with this charming little icosahedron.

Twenty-Sided Die Enamel Lapel Pin

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

My grand uncle used to stock in boxes of Blenheim Ginger Ale at his farm. When I was a kid, it was the first thing I would seek out upon arriving for a weekend stay. I was proud to be the only one of my cousins who could drink the pink...

Luke Thomas Senior Software Engineer
lukert33

Blenheim Spicy Ginger Ale

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

A well-researched and lively read about one of the most impressive technological achievements of all time: the 1858 laying of a telegraph line crossing the Atlantic and connecting North America to Europe.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

A Thread Across the Ocean

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

This delightful, debut children's book by former Atlas Obscura staff writer Sarah Laskow answers important unicorn questions like why are unicorns associated with rainbows, why do some unicorns have wings, and—of course—are unicorns real? 

The Very Short, Entirely True History of Unicorns

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Celebrate Carl Sagan's audacious and mind-bending attempt to explain human life to civilizations outside our galaxy with this enamel pin reproduction of the golden record carried aboard the Voyager space probes.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Voyager Golden Record Pin

$8
Why We Love It

The packaging of this Svensk Dröm (or Swedish Dream) Sea Salt Soap is so charming you might opt to decorate with it rather than use it, but if you do open the box you'll enjoy a textured round of soap and an invigorating scrub.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Sea Salt Soap

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

If you haven't heard, single-use plastic straws are on their way out. Get ahead of the curve with this elegant and easy-to-clean set of twelve.

Stainless Steel Straws

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Rain delays can ruin even the best-planned adventures, but this waterproof card deck is a great way to wait out the storm. Perfect for the beach as well.

Waterproof Playing Cards

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

If there's anything can be more divisive than licorice itself, it's likely licorice-flavored toothpaste. What's not debatable, however, is that this beautifully-packaged Italian import will look great next to your bathroom sink.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Marvis Licorice Mint Toothpaste

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Place this miraculous, flopping fish in your palm and learn your future. Don't like what it reveals? No worries, it's a 72-pack.

Miracle Fortune Teller Fish

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Wear your heart on your sleeve or anywhere else you might like with this anatomically-correct iron-on patch.

Anatomical Heart Patch

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

When lightning strikes the ground, it can fuse some kinds of sand, clay, or soil into glass. This produces a hollow tube called a fulgurite that can suggest the form of a lightning bolt.

Fossilized Lightning

Currently Unavailable
Why We Love It

Got dirty hands? Not anymore you don't. A perfect stocking-stuffer for a two-fisted attack on grime.

Tyler Cole VP, Community
tyler

Lava Heavy-Duty Hand Cleaner

Currently Unavailable

Atlas Obscura Goods

Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders

The Explorer’s Library

Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide | An Atlas Obscura Book

Atlas Obscura Page-A-Day Calendar 2023

An Explorer’s
Guide to the World’s
Hidden Wonders, 2nd Edition

An Explorer’s Guide
for the World’s
Most Adventurous Kid

Explorer’s Journal:
Let Your Curiosity Be Your Compass

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