Sara Ewell, the company’s Deputy Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer, sent out this note to the AO team today:

I’m pleased to share that Erin McKay has been promoted to Vice President, Client Success at Atlas Obscura.

Erin joined Atlas Obscura in 2021 as the Director of Sales Marketing and was promoted in 2023 to Senior Director of Sales Marketing. In those roles, she helped build and lead our pre-sales marketing function, translating Atlas Obscura’s mission, audience and platforms into compelling partnership programs that have been instrumental in winning and shaping some of our most ambitious brand collaborations.

As VP, Client Success, Erin’s role expands significantly. She will now oversee both our pre-sale strategy and account management teams, bringing those teams together into a unified Client Success organization. In this role, Erin will focus on ensuring that our partnerships deliver exceptional results from the first pitch through campaign execution and beyond; deepening relationships with key accounts, strengthening how we measure and communicate performance, and helping to maximize the long-term value of our brand partnerships.

It has been my great pleasure to work alongside Erin as a member of the revenue leadership team since I started at Atlas Obscura in 2022. During that time, I have seen her work closely with our Sales, Marketing, Production and Product teams to shape our go-to-market strategy, building awareness and consideration for Atlas Obscura as a trusted and innovative partner for our advertising clients. I am excited to continue working with her in this new role, as she applies her extensive marketing and storytelling expertise to the entire client lifecycle.

Please join me in congratulating Erin on this well-deserved promotion.

Warmly,
Sara

 

About Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura is the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places. Through its award-winning content, unique experiences, and community-driven platform featuring more than 30,000 wondrous places, Atlas Obscura serves millions of passionate travelers seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path discoveries. The company publishes bestselling books including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” and operates digital products that help people find amazing things to do when they are traveling.

For more information about Atlas Obscura, visit http://www.atlasobscura.com.

For questions or media requests, please contact Rebecca Cruz at rebecca@atlasobscura.com.

Louise Story, the company’s CEO & Publisher, sent out this note to the AO team today:

I’m thrilled to announce the promotion of Sara Ewell to Deputy Publisher, Chief Revenue Officer, recognizing her exceptional leadership in driving our revenue to record heights.

Since joining Atlas Obscura as Chief Revenue Officer over three and a half years ago, Sara has been instrumental in our financial success. Under her leadership, our revenue has reached its highest point ever, with significant growth in our advertising business and a robust destination marketing organization that has positioned Atlas Obscura for sustainable long-term success. Sara’s revenue excellence has been essential to achieving the company’s first profitable year in 2025.

Sara is one of the most determined, smart, upstanding, and insightful leaders I’ve had the privilege to work with. Her strategic thinking and unwavering commitment to excellence inspire everyone around her.

She brings deep expertise across media, technology, and consumer brands to Atlas Obscura. A Furman University graduate with a degree in Political Science, she built her career foundation at The Coca-Cola Company and Six Flags before moving into media leadership roles. At Atlantic Media’s National Journal, she rose through multiple positions to become Senior Director of Member and Partner Services, developing expertise in strategic partnerships and business development. She later served as Director of Partnerships at Craftsy and then rose to the role of VP, Strategic Partnerships at NBCUniversal. She founded Golden Scout Consulting, serving as a fractional Chief Revenue Officer for several high growth start-ups before joining Atlas Obscura.

In her expanded role as Deputy Publisher, Sara will continue to lead our revenue operations as we expand into a la carte consumer revenue, and she will continue to be central in our strategic planning as we build Atlas Obscura into the world’s leading community-focused travel platform. We all count on Sara to help us make the smartest choices.

Please join me in congratulating Sara on this well-deserved promotion!

— Louise 

 

About Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura is the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places. Through its award-winning content, unique experiences, and community-driven platform featuring more than 30,000 wondrous places, Atlas Obscura serves millions of passionate travelers seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path discoveries. The company publishes bestselling books including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” and operates digital products that help people find amazing things to do when they are traveling.

For more information about Atlas Obscura, visit http://www.atlasobscura.com.

For questions or media requests, please contact Rebecca Cruz at rebecca@atlasobscura.com.

As Atlas Obscura rounds out a strong 2025 and builds for the future, the travel community company welcomes two world-class professionals to its board. 

The new Common Directors are Sim Blaustein and Gabor Cselle. 

“We welcome Sim and Gabor, two individuals who understand the culture and promise of Atlas Obscura as well as how to grow and build profitable start-ups,” said Louise Story, the chief executive of Atlas Obscura. “Onward we go.”

Sim Blaustein is a Founding Partner at 1745 Ventures, the manager of the BDMI Continuation Fund, which is a holder of shares of Common Stock of the Company. Previously he was a Partner at Bertelsmann’s BDMI, which he joined in 2012 after co-founding the seed fund High Line Venture Partners. Sim has been in venture capital and startups since the start of his career, with current investments including Antenna, Letterhead, Omaze, Suzy and TVScientific. Notable exits from his time at BDMI include Barkbox (IPO), Pathmatics (acquired by Sensor Tower), Podsights (acquired by Spotify), Jukin Media (acquired by Trusted Media Brands), Food52 (acquired by TCG), StyleHaul (acquired by RTL Group), and Dramafever (acquired by Softbank). Sim holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and an engineering degree from The Cooper Union, where he graduated summa cum laude. A native New Yorker and graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Sim enjoys leading history and food tours of his hometown in Brooklyn.

 

Gabor Cselle is a Member of the Strategy Team at OpenAI, where he works on automation and safety products such as Guardrails and Agent Builder. Previously, as a Director at Google’s Area 120 incubator, he guided the development and launch of new consumer and prosumer products. He is a serial entrepreneur who founded three startups—T2, Namo Media, and reMail—with successful exits to Twitter and Google. After Twitter acquired ads startup Namo Media in 2014, he led work on ad products, trends, and the logged-out homepage. He also founded reMail, a mobile-first email client acquired by Google, and helped integrate its ideas into Inbox by Gmail. Earlier in his career, he served as VP of Engineering at Xobni, a top-ranked Outlook plugin for email search and social analytics. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich.

Blaustein and Cselle were voted to become the Common Directors of Atlas Obscura, by the holders of the majority of issued and outstanding common shares of the company.

We honor the memory of John Backus, who was a board member, longtime investor and supporter of Atlas Obscura. 

Many of our team members and investors have interacted with him over the years, because he was such a strong investor-advocate for Atlas Obscura. John served as a board observer and/or director for many years. 

John was the co-founder of the Proof venture capital firm, he was an early pioneer in online banking, and he was a trusted mentor to countless entrepreneurs. More about his impactful career can be found here.

John’s wisdom, fortitude, and kindness meant a lot to so many of us at Atlas Obscura. He always had time to provide us guidance, loved the Atlas Obscura community and mission, and pushed for our company to reach for the highest heights.

–Louise Story, CEO

Atlas Obscura

NEW YORK – Atlas Obscura is excited to announce that media industry veteran Katy Lawrence has joined the company as General Manager.

In this new leadership role, Lawrence will oversee Atlas Obscura’s operational strategy, scaling consumer-facing revenue streams while spearheading new business development initiatives in emerging categories. Reporting to CEO Louise Story, she will also partner with Story on strategic growth opportunities, including partnerships and joint ventures designed to position Atlas Obscura for long-term success and expansion.

“Atlas Obscura’s business has soared over the last few months, and now is the right time for us to add a General Manager who can work with me to bring all the pieces together to build the company for the future,” said Story, who joined the company as CEO in April. “Katy is the perfect person to work with our incredible team and me to take Atlas Obscura to its maximum potential.”

Lawrence joins Atlas Obscura following her tenure as Vice President of Commercial at Yahoo Finance, where she led video, audio, events, and strategic partnership initiatives. Prior to that, she oversaw ad revenue strategy at Yahoo Finance, and, earlier, she led a product strategy team at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones. Over her 18-year career in media, she has developed global partnerships, built new products and conferences, and led revenue strategies that bridge editorial and commercial success.

Lawrence has lived in three countries and several states across America. In a bit of kismet, she was born at one of Atlas Obscura’s own notable places, the now-abandoned Clark Air Base Hospital in the Philippines. She currently resides in Connecticut with her family. 

Lawrence’s appointment marks an exciting milestone for Atlas Obscura as it continues to expand its consumer business, deepen its brand partnerships, and build the world’s most inspiring travel community platform. She joins an incredible bench of new leaders including chief revenue officer Sara Ewell, chief marketing officer Asmaa Quorrich, chief product transformation officer Lauren Johnston, head of product Natalie Moore, and executive editor Emma Patti, as well as AO veterans like SVP of engineering Dan Sobo, AO Entertainment chief content officer Doug Baldinger, and senior director, sales marketing Erin McKay.

 

About Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura is the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places. Through its award-winning content, unique experiences, and community-driven platform featuring more than 30,000 wondrous places, Atlas Obscura serves millions of passionate travelers seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path discoveries. The company publishes bestselling books including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” and operates digital products that help people find amazing things to do when they are traveling.

For more information about Atlas Obscura, visit http://www.atlasobscura.com.

For questions or media requests, please contact Rebecca Cruz at rebecca@atlasobscura.com.

Critically Acclaimed Experience Expands to Newest Immersive Platform with Exclusive Features and a Limited-Time $0.99 Offer Through EOY; Deepens Creative Alliance with the Award-winning XR Studio

 

 

BYRON BAY, NSW, AUSTRALIA AND LOS ANGELES, CA, USA, October 21, 2025 — New Canvas today announced that its award-winning immersive project, Atlas Obscura VR, is available as a launch title on the highly anticipated Samsung’s Galaxy XR (aka “Project Moohan”) mixed reality headset powered by Google’s Android XR platform. On Moohan, users will experience the most visually stunning and feature-rich version of the app to date complete with Android XR-exclusive eye-tracking and the highest resolution yet available. The headset is the first major product to be built on the new Android XR platform.

This expansion to Samsung’s platform marks the next evolution in New Canvas’ partnership with Atlas Obscura and a milestone moment for the studio, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year. The new app release also adds to New Canvas’ roster of trusted XR partnerships, which now includes Meta, Samsung and Google, reinforcing its position as a global presence in XR storytelling. To celebrate the launch and welcome new audiences to Samsung’s platform, for a limited-time Atlas Obscura VR on Galaxy XR is available in the Google Play store for a special price of just $0.99 (regularly $12.99) through the end of 2025.

 

 

“Atlas Obscura has always been about embracing curiosity and empowering discovery. VR allows us to extend that mission in a deeply personal and transportive way. Working with New Canvas as a trusted partner to launch Atlas Obscura VR on a groundbreaking new platform like Android XR is both thrilling and inspiring,” said Doug Baldinger, Atlas Obscura Entertainment’s Chief Content Officer. 

The World’s Hidden Wonders, Now in Unprecedented Detail

Atlas Obscura VR invites audiences to travel beyond conventional guidebooks, immersing them in some of the world’s most unusual, mysterious and awe-inspiring places. Whether marveling at the beauty of remote natural landscapes or uncovering the secrets of human ingenuity, virtual travelers will find themselves transported to the extraordinary corners of our world from within their homes.

Atlas Obscura VR takes users on an unforgettable journey through three interactive episodes, each blending high-quality 360° video, detailed photogrammetry and narration by the authors of the Atlas Obscura book. The immersive experience also includes photos and imagery of 50+ global destinations from the Atlas Obscura archives as well as three fully interactive and immersive episodes. These episodes cover a diverse range of destinations including:

• Turda Salt Mine: a salt mine in Romania that’s also the world’s most spectacular underground formation shaped by people
• Winchester Mystery House: a spooky mega-mansion in California
• Temples of Damanhur: a subterranean, living lab for the future, created by a federation of spiritual communities in the Italian Alps

 

A New Format for Immersive, Factual Storytelling

The Atlas Obscura VR experience treads the fine line between interactivity and passive narrative, arriving at a sense of ‘audience agency’ that should deepen the experience and provide a personalised unique journey, while not demanding too much of the audience.

“Atlas Obscura VR has always been about transforming curiosity into experience, inviting audiences to explore, not just observe. With Samsung’s Galaxy XR, that sense of discovery reaches a new level of realism and connection, while the fidelity, interactivity and presence of the new headset bring that vision into sharper focus. This is the future we imagined when we first created the app,” said Nathan Anderson, Co-Founder & Executive Producer, New Canvas. “We’ve gone far beyond a simple port, remastering content and reimagining the user experience for eye-tracking and next-generation storytelling. It’s thrilling that the journey which began on Samsung Gear VR now continues on their most advanced XR device yet.”

 

The re-release builds on New Canvas’s commitment to creating meaningful, immersive storytelling experiences. By utilizing the new Samsung platform, the app delivers seamless interactivity and immersive presence, driving the key benefits of virtual reality.

“Launching Atlas Obscura VR on Samsung’s ‘Project Moohan’ with Android XR demonstrates how New Canvas is forging the next chapter of immersive storytelling,” said Wadooah Wali, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, New Canvas. “With partnerships now spanning Meta, Samsung and Google, we are building a global network that amplifies our creative work and helps shape the future of XR. As we mark our fifth anniversary, this moment is both a celebration of our progress and a preview of the future we’re creating.”

 

 

Launched in 2017 and remastered in 2024, Atlas Obscura VR has become a landmark in immersive factual storytelling. Originally developed and produced by Start VR (now known as Start Beyond), the Atlas Obscura VR app was transferred to New Canvas when the company was spun out of Start VR in late 2020. New for Samsung XR, the Atlas Obscura VR experience is now available in the Google Play store.

 

Download the app today! 

 

—

 

About Atlas Obscura:

Atlas Obscura is an Emmy and James Beard award-winning media and travel company. Widely celebrated for building the definitive, community-driven platform for discovering the world’s hidden wonders, we also publish best selling books, make the #1 travel podcast in the world, offer top-of-class storytelling, and once-in-a-lifetime trips. Our community-driven platform is the Atlas itself, a collection of more than 30,000 wondrous places around the world. It is a collaborative project. We depend on our community of explorers to help us discover amazing places and share them with the world. www.atlasobscura.com 

About New Canvas:

New Canvas is an award-winning XR studio committed to pushing the boundaries of immersive media. With a focus on socially relevant storytelling, we create compelling and innovative experiences for breakthrough platforms that captivates and resonates with global audiences. New Canvas is focused on developing content and formats to help drive mainstream adoption of immersive media and is a founding member of the Byron Bay XR Collective. We honour Australia’s First Nations Peoples, acknowledging the Arakwal, the traditional custodians of the Bundjalung Country, on which New Canvas was founded. For additional information, please visit: www.newcanvas.co.

 

###

 

Media Contacts:

Atlas Obscura

rebecca@atlasobscura.com 

New Canvas

hi@newcanvas.co 

NEW YORK – Atlas Obscura, the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places, today announced Kelly McEvers is joining The Atlas Obscura Podcast as a guest co-host and contributor. McEvers, a two-time Peabody Award winner and one of public radio’s most distinctive voices, brings her celebrated storytelling to the podcast that has captivated millions of listeners with stories of the world’s most strange and fascinating places.

“We’re thrilled to bring Kelly’s signature voice and perspective to the team and to our audience,” said Doug Baldinger, Executive Producer of The Atlas Obscura Podcast. “Her ability to find compelling human stories in unexpected places and her infectious curiosity make her a perfect fit for our mission to inspire wonder in our listeners.”

McEvers is best known as the founding host of NPR’s Embedded, an award-winning documentary podcast that was recently named one of Time magazine’s “100 Best Podcasts of All Time.” She also served as host of NPR’s flagship daily news magazine All Things Considered and was the founding host of NPR’s daily news podcast Consider This. McEvers has contributed to This American Life, Marketplace, the BBC, and The World, and worked extensively as an international correspondent, reporting from Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East, where she covered the Arab Spring and the wars in Iraq and Syria. With veteran radio producer Jay Allison, she made Diary of a Bad Year, a radio documentary about the life of a war correspondent. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Esquire, Foreign Policy, Time, The New Republic, Slate, The Washington Monthly, the Christian Science Monitor, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She began her journalism career at the Chicago Tribune.

“I have spent most of my life roaming the world, discovering remarkable people and places,” said McEvers. “I can’t wait to explore more with the Atlas Obscura audience.” McEvers currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a “daily but still somewhat mediocre” surfer.

Atlas Obscura’s award-winning podcast program has been consistently recognized for excellence in audio storytelling. This year, Atlas Obscura won 8 Signal Awards, including Gold for Best Daily Podcast, and its podcast Charlie’s Place was named as one of BBC’s Best Podcasts of 2025.

The Atlas Obscura Podcast, a celebration of the world’s strange, fascinating, and wondrous places, is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and SiriusXM Podcasts. New episodes featuring McEvers will begin later this month.

About Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura is the leading community-focused travel platform inspiring wonder and curiosity about the world’s most remarkable places. Through its award-winning content, unique experiences, and community-driven platform featuring more than 30,000 wondrous places, Atlas Obscura serves millions of passionate travelers seeking authentic, off-the-beaten-path discoveries. The company publishes bestselling books including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller “Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” and operates digital products that help people find amazing things to do when they are traveling.

For more information about Atlas Obscura, visit www.atlasobscura.com.

Media Contact: Rebecca Cruz at rebecca@atlasobscura.com