Privacy Notice

Last updated February 26, 2024

What Personal information Does Atlas Obscura Collect? How Does Atlas Obscura Use Personal information? Will Atlas Obscura Share Personal information with Others? Third-party Advertisers Is My Information Secure? International Data Transfer European Union Data Privacy Rights Legal Basis for Processing under GDPR California Privacy Rights In the Event of Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy Children's Privacy

The web site accessible through www.atlasobscura.com and any affiliated portals, apps, or other channels (the "Website") is owned, operated and distributed by Atlas Obscura Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("Atlas Obscura,” “we” or “us”). BY ACCESSING ANY PART OF THE WEBSITE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS DESCRIBED BELOW (THE "PRIVACY NOTICE") AND THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE ATLAS OBSCURA TERMS OF USE (THE "TERMS OF USE"). IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ANY OF THESE TERMS, YOU SHOULD NOT USE THE ATLAS OBSCURA WEBSITE.

This Privacy Notice applies to all users, including both users who are simply viewing the Website and users who are also contributors of content, information, and other materials or services on the Website. Please note that any User Submission (as defined in the Terms of Use) becomes published content and may not be subject to all the rights available to your personal information as described in this Privacy Notice once it is published.

Where permitted by law, Atlas Obscura may, at its sole discretion, modify this Privacy Notice at any time. By accessing the Website at any time after such modifications, you are agreeing to such modifications.

What Personal information Does Atlas Obscura Collect?

During your use of the Website or through other communication with us, Atlas Obscura may collect and process certain personal information (also commonly referred to as personal data, personally identifiable information, or PII). You may affirmatively provide us with personal information, or, in some cases, it may be collected automatically as described in this Notice and in our Cookie Policy.

Personal information collected directly from you:

Website users, email subscribers, and Experience purchasers: name, email address, or other contact information.
Purchasers of trips: name, email address, phone number, other contact information, passport information, birthdate, billing information. (Note that Atlas Obscura may not collect this information directly, and it may be collected by our partners at the time of purchase.)
User Submissions: You will also have the opportunity to submit content for inclusion on the Website as described in the Terms of Service. You control what personal information is collected from you via User Submissions, and you provide such User Submissions knowing that the submission may become public. For more information on rules regarding User Submission, please review our Terms of Service.
DO NOT PROVIDE CERTAIN PERSONAL INFORMATION: Please note that you should not submit to Atlas Obscura any sensitive data relating to your (i) racial or ethnic origin (ii) political beliefs (iii) philosophical or religious beliefs (iv) membership of a trade union or political party (v) physical or mental health or genetic makeup (vi) addictions, sexual life or (vii) the commission of criminal offences or proceedings and associated penalties or fines, unless you have previously sent to us your written consent that we may process such Personal Information, if Atlas Obscura determines consent to be a requirement of applicable law. If you provide such sensitive data Atlas Obscura, that data will be promptly deleted.

Personal and non-personal information not provided by you:

"Cookies, " Log-File Information, and “Clear-GIFs”: When you visit the Website, Atlas Obscura utilized certain technologies as described in our Cookie Policy. For more information on the information collected through those technologies, how it is used, and who it is shared with, please review our Cookie Policy.

How Does Atlas Obscura Use Personal information?

Any personal information that you voluntarily disclose online (on discussion boards, in messages and chat areas, within your public profile page, through a User Submission, etc.) becomes publicly available and can be collected and used by others. Your account name (not your email address) is displayed to other Users when you make a User Submission, and other users can contact you through messages and comments. Once that personal information is made public, Atlas Obscura does not control subsequent use of that personal information, and you may be unable to exercise your data privacy rights as described in this Notice.

We use information, including personal information, that we collect about you or that you provide to us for a variety of purposes, including:

To present our Website and its content to you.
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
To fulfill any other stated purpose for which you provide it, which may be disclosed outside of this Privacy Notice.
To improve our content, products, services, Website, and apps.
To deliver content, including ads, relevant to your interest in our products and services.

If you have not opted out from receiving emails from Atlas Obscura, we may use your email address or other personal information to send commercial or marketing messages. Atlas Obscura also may use your email address for non-marketing or administrative purposes (such as notifying you of major Website changes or for customer service purposes). You cannot opt out of receiving emails for non-marketing or administrative purposes.

We'll retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide you with our services. You can ask for your personal information to be deleted at any time or ask for us to send you or a 3rd party your personal information by contacting us via this form. Please note that there may be latency in deleting your personal information from our servers and backup storage, and we may retain your personal information in order to comply with the law, protect our rights, resolve disputes or enforce our agreements.

Atlas Obscura uses aggregated information (such as anonymous user usage data, cookies, IP addresses, browser type, clickstream data, etc.) to improve the quality and design of the Website and to create new features, promotions, functionality, and services by storing, tracking, and analyzing user preferences and trends. In addition, Atlas Obscura may use "cookies" clear gifs and log file information to deliver content (which may include third party advertisements) specific to your interests and remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it each time you visit the Website. You can find out more information about how these technologies are used in our Cookie Policy.

Will Atlas Obscura Share Personal information with Others?

Atlas Obscura will not share your personal information (such as name or email address) with other, third-party companies for their commercial or marketing use without your consent or except as part of a specific program or feature for which you have the ability to opt-in or opt-out.

Atlas Obscura may provide personal information to employees, consultants, affiliates or other businesses or persons for the purpose of processing such information on its behalf. In such circumstances, Atlas Obscura requires that these parties agree to protect the confidentiality of such information and to comply in all respects with this Privacy Notice. If you wish to be exempt from this processing, you may request via via this form that we delete your account. Please note that some sharing is necessary to use the service and participate on the Atlas Obscura Website, and we may be unable to opt you out of all sharing if you wish to continue receiving services and/or engaging with the Website.

Atlas Obscura may share non-personally-identifiable information (such as anonymous User usage data, referring / exit pages and URLs, platform types, number of clicks, etc.) with interested third-parties to assist them in understanding the usage patterns for certain content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality on the Website and to serve interest-based ads on both the Website and trusted partner applications.

In addition, Atlas Obscura may release personal information: (i) to the extent we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with any applicable law, enforce any provision of the Terms of Use, protect itself against any liability, defend itself against any claims, protect the rights, property and personal safety of any user or protect the public welfare; or (ii) to respond to a court order, subpoena, or search warrant.

Third-party Advertisers

Atlas Obscura may allow other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks, to serve advertisements within the Website. These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to send, directly to your browser, the advertisements and links that appear on the Website. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. They may also use other technologies (such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons) to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and to personalize the advertising content you see. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers or ad networks for more information on their practices and for instructions on how to opt-out of certain practices. This Privacy Notice does not apply to them, and Atlas Obscura cannot control their activities.

We may use data from Google’s Interest-based advertising or 3rd-party audience data (such as age, gender and interests) with Google Analytics. You can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customize Google Display Network ads via Google Ads Settings, or opt out of general interested-based advertising via the NAI Consumer Opt Out. You may also be interested in the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Is My Information Secure?

Atlas Obscura's application databases and related backups are encrypted-at-rest. Transmission of data between application servers, databases, and other services is over secure connections, and users may only connect with our web services using HTTPS. To prevent unauthorized access, our internal databases and application servers require two-factor authentication for all administrators. We employ web application firewalls, attack-detection, and similar services to prevent the authorized access of our public-facing services. Applications and underlying systems are monitored for security vulnerabilities and patched in a timely fashion when threats are discovered.

Atlas Obscura has implemented security measures to protect personal information collected on the Website against loss, misuse or alteration. In addition, your account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by logging off once you have finished using a shared computer. Moreover, despite the precautions described above, Atlas Obscura cannot and does not guarantee that the individual user information you have transmitted will not be intercepted by others and/or decrypted or accidentally disclosed, and we accept no liability for any unintentional disclosure.

International Data Transfer

If you are located outside the United States, in particular if you are located in Switzerland or the European Union (“EU”), please note that we and our servers are located in the United States. Any information that you provide to us may be transferred to and processed in the United States or other countries around the world where we do business. Although this may include recipients of information located in countries where there may be a lower level of legal protection for your personal information than in your country, we will protect your information in accordance with requirements applicable to the law in your particular jurisdiction and take steps to only share with third parties that offer similar protection. By using our Website, you unambiguously consent to your information being collected, processed, used, and transferred as disclosed herein.

European Union Data Privacy Rights

If you are located in EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) grants you certain rights under the law. In particular, the right to access, correct, delete, restrict processing of, and data portability of the personal information we hold about you. We may retain your personal information as described in this Privacy Notice.

Upon request, we will grant you reasonable access to personal information that we hold about you. In addition, we will take reasonable steps to permit you to correct, amend, delete, restrict processing of, and request portability of the personal information we hold about you. We also rely upon your assistance in providing accurate updates of your personal information. In order make a request regarding your personal information, please make a request via this form.

As described above, if you provide us with User Contributions, that information may become public, and we may not be able to retrieve, delete, or prevent further distribution of User Contributions on our Website and in other forms of media once that information has entered the public domain. Upon submitting a User Contribution, you acknowledge that User Contributions are subject to this Privacy Notice and the applicable terms and conditions issued by us for such User Contributions.

If you have a comment, question, or complaint about how we are handling your personal information, we hope that you contact us via this form in order to allow us to resolve the matter. In addition, if you are located in the EU, you may submit a complaint regarding the processing of your personal information to the EU data protection authorities (each a “DPA”). The following link may assist you in finding the appropriate DPA: https://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/bodies/authorities/index_en.htm.

Legal Basis for Processing under GDPR

We process and transfer some of your personal information under GDPR on the basis of your consent as described in this Privacy Notice. In addition, in certain circumstances, we process your personal information because it is necessary to enter into and perform a contract between us and you. Finally, we may also process your personal information based on our legitimate interests to market and sell our service and Website

Where personal information is processed based on consent, EU residents have the right to withdraw such consent at any time. To do so, please contact us via this form. If there is a different legal basis that would permit us to continue processing your personal information after withdrawing consent, we will notify you of that legal basis at the time of your request.

California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with certain rights with regard to your personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). Throughout this Privacy Notice you will find information required by CCPA regarding the categories of personal information collected from you; the purposes for which we use personal information, and the categories of third parties your data may be shared with. This information is current as of the date of the Notice and is applicable in the 12 months preceding the effective date of the Notice.

As a California resident, the CCPA provides you the ability to make inquiries regarding to your personal information. Specifically, the degree to which the information is not already provided in this Privacy Notice, you have the right to request disclosure about the collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months, including:

The categories of personal information collected about you.
The categories of sources for the personal information collected about you.
The business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information.
The categories of third parties with whom your personal information was shared.
The specific pieces of personal information collected about you.
If your personal information was disclosed for a business purpose, the personal information categories disclosed and the categories of third parties to which the information was disclosed.
If your personal information was sold in the past 12 months, the personal information categories sold and the categories of third parties to which the information was sold.

Please note that you may only make the above requests twice in a 12-month period. You also have the right to request that any of your personal information collected and retained be deleted, subject to certain exceptions. Finally, you have the right to not receive discriminatory treatment by Atlas Obscura or any business for exercising any of the rights provided under CCPA.

You may submit a request regarding your rights under CCPA by submitting it via this form or by mailing us at

Atlas Obscura Privacy Rights
61 Greenpoint Ave #210
Brooklyn, NY 11222

If we receive a CCPA request from you, we will first make a determination regarding the applicability of the law, and we will then take steps to verify your identity prior to responding. The steps to verify your identity may vary based on our relationship with you, but, at a minimum, it will take the form of confirming and matching the information submitted in the request with information already held by Atlas Obscura and/or contacting you through previously used channels to confirm that you submitted the request (i.e. confirming identity through contact information that we have on file, not the contact information submitted to make the request).

Your rights as stated here can also be exercised by an authorized agent on your behalf. Atlas Obscura will follow the standards set by the Attorney General of California regarding designation of an authorized agent to exercise rights under CCPA. You may review information available through the Attorney General website (https://www.oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa) regarding how an individual can be designated as an authorized agent under CCPA.

In addition to CCPA, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits users of the Website who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please detail your request with this form or write us at:

Atlas Obscura Privacy Rights
61 Greenpoint Ave #622
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Notice of Financial Incentive

We offer programs, benefits, and other offerings to consumers that use the Website, related to our collection and use of personal information that might be deemed a “financial incentive” under the CCPA. We are providing you this information so that you may make an informed decision on whether to participate in these programs. Examples of the programs that we offer as part of the Website include: limited time promotions, contests, or sweepstakes.

In exchange for your participation in these offerings, we may provide you with a financial incentive, such as, a prize or discount when you enter a limited time promotions, contest, or sweepstakes. As part of these limited-time offerings, we may collect and use your personal information, such as, your name, home address, date of birth, mailing address, email address, and telephone number. We disclose this personal information to our service providers, contractors, and consultants who perform services on our behalf and to our marketing and advertising partners, including for the purpose of engaging in targeted advertising and other marketing activities. Participation in any such promotions, contests, or sweepstakes are governed by this Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and/or our TERMS OF USE in addition to any specific terms and conditions that apply to any such promotions, contests, or sweepstakes. You can opt into these financial incentives by following the sign-up or participation instructions provided, and you have the ability to opt-out at any time by following the instructions set forth in the applicable limited time promotion, contest, or sweepstakes, or by completing this form. If you request that we delete any of your personal information that is essential to providing you with the financial incentive, we will not be able to provide you with the benefits of that offering. In some cases, we may provide additional terms and conditions, which we will provide to you when you sign up. Our good-faith estimate of the value of your personal information for participating in our promotions, contests, and sweepstakes are the value of the benefit we offer you.

In the Event of Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy

In the event that Atlas Obscura is acquired by or merged with a third-party entity, we reserve the right to transfer or assign the information we have collected from users as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control. In the unlikely event of Atlas Obscura's bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, Atlas Obscura may not be able to control how your personal information is treated, transferred, or used.

Children's Privacy

You must be 18 years and older to register to use the Website. As a result, Atlas Obscura does not collect information about children.