Juan Monroy

A little over a week ago, Atlas Obscura—the Greenpoint, Brooklyn–based purveyors of the strange, the offbeat, and, yes, the obscure—announced that they are relaunching their International Obscura Day. In the past, the day has consisted of organized tours, located throughout the world, in the spirit of the Atlas Obscura.

Obscura Day is the real-world manifestation of Atlas Obscura – a day of expeditions, back-room tours, unusual access and discovery in your hometown. More than just cataloging the curious, wondrous and overlooked places of the world, we’d like to encourage you to actually go out and explore them. Special events will be taking place at unusual locations across the globe as we highlight obscure collections, eclectic museums, hidden wonders and curiosities near and afar to show that the same sense of wonder invoked by exotic travels can be found close to home if you know where to look.

On Obscura Day 2012, Sarah and I went on a couple of tours, including a jaunt around our very own Superfund site and a lower-Manhattan pub crawl with a bunch of Victorians. As a validation of my photography that day, the New York City chapter used some of my photos to illustrate their recap of the day.

Although I didn’t attend any events in 2013 or 2014, I didn’t actually miss any events. Apparently, Obscura Day went on a two-year hiatus but will be returning this year at the end of May.

As of right now, Obscura Day is in the save-the-date stage. You can, however, sign up for the newsletter, to learn of any updates. As excited as I am to see what tours will be scheduled around New York this year, it might make for a worthwhile reason to organize an out-of-town bike trip.