Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and all major podcast apps. I’m Kelly McEvers, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

So I don’t know about you, but I like to keep track of all the places that I have visited, say, in the past year. I have lists of all the countries that I visit in a given region.

Each year I go back to my handwritten calendar planner book because, yes, I still write everything down. I have kept track of all my trips, and that helps me remember all the places I’ve visited and the people I saw.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

“There’s not much there anymore, it’s pretty much just a crossroads.” I read the posts online telling me not to bother, but I wanted to go anyway. Certainly I could feel something as we got close: the sense of desperation, of ruin and abandon.

So I drove with a small group of friends deep into eastern Pennsylvania—coal country—through towns with names like Frackville, Pottsville, Ashland. Many downtowns had at least one house that had burned to ruin and been left abandoned.

It was early June, but clouds covered the sky and we drove through a slight but persistent rain. We were on our way to Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

The mounds on the LSU campus were originally built at a prominent landmark along the Mississippi River that would have been recognizable to any traveler 11,000 years ago when construction most likely began. The mounds were periodically built and modified over thousands of years, even while the River shifted its course.

Experts don't know why the Native American builders created them, or how they used them. But people believe that they may have been a meeting place and a site for sacred and secular events.

Twenty-first century research has indicated that these mounds are older than previously proven with scientific techniques, suggesting that they may be the oldest extant human-built structures in the Americas.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

The decorated tombs that have survived from ancient Egypt share detailed biographical information about the their occupants. From the elaborate wall-paintings and hieroglyphic inscriptions, we can learn a great deal about the deceased—their names and ages, their professions and accomplishments, the size and composition of their families.

In the 1960s, archaeologists were flabbergasted to discover a tomb that was not like the others. Instead of a husband and wife, the tomb had been built for two men named Ni-Ankh-Khnum and Khnum-Hotep, who had worked together as manicurists and hairdressers at the royal court during the Fifth Dynasty.

More than 4000 years ago, two men had decided to spend eternity together. Ni-Ankh-Khnum and Khnum-Hotep commissioned an unusual series of wall paintings to decorate their tomb.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

Arcades are a thing of the past in most of the west but still quite alive in Japan, though mostly as modern facilities with digital games. But how did arcades look 50-100 years ago?

In some places you can see for yourself. The Dagashiya Game Museum is exactly such a place, hidden away right next to a temple.

It functions as a candy shop as well as a Showa-era arcade. All machines work on either 10 yen coins or custom tokens, both of which can be exchanged at the counter.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

When you enter the tasting room at Maine Beer Company, look up! There’s a 50 foot long fin whale skeleton suspended from the rafters above the bar area.

This whale skeleton, named Finny, was collected in the fall of 2024 by students and staff at College of the Atlantic Allied Whale and was preserved and articulated by Dan DenDanto of Whales and Nails. The installation was made possible because of Maine Beer Company's longstanding nonprofit giving program.

In 2009 their first-ever 1% for the Planet nonprofit donation was sent to Allied Whale and so began a long giving partnership. In fact, Lunch, their popular IPA, is actually named after a whale that was first spotted in 1982 off the coast of Maine (and was catalogued by their photo ID project).

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

Run the Island Line Trail to its northernmost section and you'll find the geological marvel that is the Colchester Causeway: a three mile-long land bridge delivering pedestrians and cyclists to South Hero Island. On this path, you'll be able to see Lake Champlain only a few feet from you on either side, with breathtaking views of Stave, Sunset, and Law Islands to the west.

This land bridge was originally built by the Rutland-Canadian Railroad for trains to bring passengers northward through the Champlain Islands to Montreal, but after service ended in 1961, the city repurposed it for public use. To allow boat traffic, the causeway ends about 2.7 miles across the lake in a 200-foot gap, known to locals as "the cut." A bike ferry from Local Motion operates during the summer to shuttle cyclists and pedestrians across.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

The DDR, the government of the former East Germany, is often described as a piece of eastern Soviet communism in the west. Which is a result of the import of furniture, architecture, and art into a western city.

Much of this art has been removed since reunification, but some important pieces persevere. 'Aufbau der Republik' is perhaps the most important of those pieces due to both its location and history.

It is installed on the north wall of what is now the finance ministry, but what was once the DDR headquarters and the Nazi air ministry before that. During the times of the DDR, this meant that a distinction needed to be made between the new government and the buildings’ old occupants.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

The El Desdémona was built in Hamburg and sailed to South America as a merchant ship. As early as 1983, it was severely damaged off the coast of Buenos Aires.

A lightning strike destroyed the navigation system, and it ran aground. The crew managed to escape and navigated the ship onward to Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of Argentina.

When the engine also failed, the captain attempted to reach the port of Ushuaia at a slow speed. The shipyard was unable to repair the damage, but the crew continued their journey nonetheless.

Atlas Obscura - Latest • Jan. 18, 2026, 1:36 p.m.

In Paris, the 14th arrondissement is rarely visited by tourists. Yet many places there are worth a visit.

The Villa Seurat is one of them. Contrary to what its name might suggest, it is not a large and luxurious country house, because in Paris, the term "villa" refers to a street or cul-de-sac lined with individual houses.

This one was built between 1920 and 1926 on land that had previously been used for stables and sheds. It is named after the painter Georges Seurat, inventor of pointillism, and is unique in that it houses several studios that were designed from the outset for artists.

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