Elborough, T: Atlas of Improbable Places A Journey to the World's Most Unusual Corners

In a time when exploring the world is something to look forward to but due to pandemic restrictions not easily doable, travel books are a great way to discover new places and stir up anticipation for the time after. Travis Elborough has found places which are not on the average agenda for a trip. In the subtitle, he calls them “the world’s most unusual corners” and I couldn’t agree more with that. He classifies his finding into six groups: dream creations, deserted destinations, architectural oddities, floating worlds, otherworldly places, and subterranean realms. In each, he presents several destinations which are distributed all over the world with a majority in the USA and Europe. Each spot is accompanied by a text of two to four pages explaining what makes the place outstanding. The author offers a great variety, from formerly closed soviet cities and other deserted military places over utopian places like Christania and villages abandoned after wars or other incidents to modern creations like the artificial island “The Palm” and underground ways which were never meant to be discovered. It is a great coffee table book or gift to somebody who likes to travel and to learn about never heard of places. The information has the perfect lengths to take up the book now and again and just read and learn a bit about this planet’s wondrous locations.

In a time when exploring the world is something to look forward to but due to pandemic restrictions not easily doable, travel books are a great way to discover new places and stir up anticipation for the time after. Travis Elborough has found places which are not on the average agenda for a trip. In the subtitle, he calls them “the world’s most unusual corners” and I couldn’t agree more with that. He classifies his finding into six groups: dream creations, deserted destinations, architectural oddities, floating worlds, otherworldly places, and subterranean realms. In each, he presents several destinations which are distributed all over the world with a majority in the USA and Europe. Each spot is accompanied by a text of two to four pages explaining what makes the place outstanding. The author offers a great variety, from formerly closed soviet cities and other deserted military places over utopian places like Christania and villages abandoned after wars or other incidents to modern creations like the artificial island “The Palm” and underground ways which were never meant to be discovered. It is a great coffee table book or gift to somebody who likes to travel and to learn about never heard of places. The information has the perfect lengths to take up the book now and again and just read and learn a bit about this planet’s wondrous locations.