Atlas Obscura travel tips

If you’re not one of the 32 million people lucky enough to live in the path of totality for the 2024 total solar eclipse, you may be one of the millions traveling to a viewing location. It is projected that Arkansas, one of the first states to witness this April 8 marvel that only happens once every 100 years or so per area, will experience its largest tourism turnout in history, according to the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

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One night, when Nadia Abuisnaineh was in 11th grade, Mormon missionaries came knocking. After Abuisnaineh’s sister politely declined their proselytizing, the pair turned to leave—but not before asking, “Do you know that there are auroras outside?” Immediately running out the door of their Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, home, Abuisnaineh witnessed the northern lights for the first time.

Atlas Obscura’s weekly crossword comes to us from Natan Last, a writer who also helps develop policy and digital products for refugees and asylum seekers. His work can be found in The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker, and other publications, and he’s currently working on a nonfiction book about crosswords.

Even celestial events need a backing track—and the April 8 total solar eclipse is no different. Whether you’re road-tripping down to Hot Springs, Arkansas for Atlas Obscura’s Ecliptic Festival or flying over to Cleveland, Ohio, you’ll undoubtedly need some tunes to get you in the mood.

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

This themed crossword comes from Zhouqin (C.C.) Burnikel, who grew up in Xi’an, China, before moving to the United States in 2001. She’s the author of Sip & Solve Easy Mini Crosswords.

We all have them. Those holiday ornaments that we put up every year thinking, “Maybe it’s really time to retire this cracked pickle ornament?” But nonetheless, every year, they go up, like a bowhead whale that just won’t die. After a few years, the cracked pickle has become a beloved holiday tradition. It’s how a lot of the most unusual ornaments and decorations turn into holiday mainstays.

Depending on how you count it, you could say I've been a pescatarian for seven years. Or just five months.

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Secret Obsessions is Atlas Obscura’s column where we ask wondrous people to take us down a rabbit hole. This edition features chart-topping pop duo Aly & AJ—sisters Aly and AJ Michalka.

Atlas Obscura’s Wondersky columnist Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science journalist and author of the upcoming Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (January 2024, Random House). She shares the stories and secrets of our wondrous night sky.

If you spend a lot of time outdoors at night in the summer, you might be used to seeing shaky, silhouetted creatures flitting above. Maybe you’ve stopped to watch them skim over your garden at twilight, or you’ve caught them while you’re camping near a lake, or you just sense a brief flash of movement outside your window. Birdwatching is great, but bat-watching is another world entirely.

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps.

Between 1850 and 1852, a mighty, squat stone fort rose from a low-lying island in the Milford Haven Waterway in Wales. Originally proposed by Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to King Henry VIII, more than 300 years earlier, Stack Rock Fort—about 800 yards off the coast—was built to protect the Royal Dockyard at Pembroke Dock from attack by sea. It had a 30-foot tower, walls nine feet and nine inches thick, and housed three large cannons and one smaller one. A few years later casemates were added, and by 1870, the fort got a major makeover, inspired by the threat of Napoleon III. A new battery was added, able to hold up to 175 soldiers and five officers. Most of the fort’s useful life was spent undergoing upgrades, and it only really saw active use during World War I. In 1929 it was finally decommissioned, disarmed, and scoured for useful materials. Since then, the lonely three-story fort has sat vacant but for crashing waves, nesting gulls, and opportunistic plants.