It’s tough to follow the House on the Rock, one of my all-time top must-see places, but I’ll give it a shot.

My name is Annetta Black, and I’m the senior editor here at Atlas Obscura. Here’s little bit about me:

I got an early start as a traveler when my family moved to Riyadh for my dad’s work. The flight itself was exotic enough, with three stopovers in far flung cites, and then Saudi Arabia’s camels, maze-like souks, and ancient mud castles were magical to me as a seven year old. En route home, we detoured through seven European countries, giving me an early taste for train travel, street markets, and strange licorice flavored candies. As soon as I was done with school I got on another plane, and I have been traveling as often as possible ever since.

Years later, I abandoned my relatively stable San Francisco life for six months of seriously under-funded, mostly solo travel in Europe, a move I highly recommend even if it means occasionally having to consider stolen packets of soup crackers an acceptable dinner substitute.

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I’ve always loved macabre stories and secret places, but on that trip I discovered a previously unsuspected passion for history. The catalyst was an unplanned bus tour through the Flanders countryside (Belgium in March is freezing. The brochure promised heating.). One afternoon of exploring lead-soaked farmland, collapsed trenches, and German pillboxes changed me from completely indifferent to rabidly interested in WWI history. I realized how little I knew, and after seeing the rebuilt cathedral in Ypres and unexploded 80 year old munitions by the side of country roads, I sought out the stories that would put the places I saw into context. I began to see travel as a way not only of seeing the world as it is, but understanding the past, and I also began to see how knowing the stories changes the way you see a place.

I joined up with Josh and Dylan shortly after the Atlas launched. I had been looking for something like it for years, and had started to compile the strange places I had seen in my travels when I came across the freshly minted Atlas. It appears that we all share some sort of creepy travel/esoterica/history/doom hive mind. I hope you do, too.