Atlas Obscura

Talk about a bucket list: here are natural wonders—the dazzling glowworm caves in New Zealand, or a baobab tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably. Architectural marvels, including the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India. Like the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, mind-boggling events where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants. Not to mention the Great Stalacpipe Organ in Virginia, Turkmenistan's 40-year hole of fire called the Gates of Hell, a graveyard for decommissioned ships on the coast of Bangladesh, eccentric bone museums in Italy, or a weather-forecasting invention that was powered by leeches in Devon, England.

Created by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton, Atlas Obscura revels in the weird, the unexpected, the overlooked, the hidden, and the mysterious. Every page expands our sense of how strange and marvelous the world really is. And with its compelling descriptions, hundreds of photographs, surprising charts, and maps for every region of the world, it is a book to enter anywhere and will be as appealing to the armchair traveler as the die-hard adventurer. Anyone can be a tourist. Get started.