# Atlas of Forgotten Places: Journey to Abandoned Destinations Around the Globe - Hardcover

by **Travis Elborough** (Author)

**Explore the places that time forgot. Abandoned, mysterious, sleeping monuments around the world have been relegated to the margins of history, pushed off the map and out of sight.**

From ancient ruins and crumbling castles to more recent relics - an art deco New York subway station, a Soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle, a flooded Thai mall teeming with aquatic life - Travis Elborough takes you on **a journey into these strange, overlooked and disappearing worlds and immortalises their fates.**

**Original maps** and **stunning colour photography** accompany Travis Elborough's **moving historic and geographic accounts of each site**. The featured locations are a stark reminder of what was, and the accounts in **this investigative book help to bring their stories back to life, telling us what happened, when and why, and to whom**.

The book features 40 sites, including:

-   **Santa Claus, Arizona, USA:** A festive tourist resort turned ghost town deep in the desert where once you could meet Santa Claus any day of the year;
-   **Crystal Palace Subway, London, UK:** One of the city's best-kept secrets is an underground, cathedral-like relic from where many Victorian commuters bustled through;
-   **Montserrat, West Indies**: The small Caribbean island with a population of 5,000 that was evacuated when its volcano erupted in 1995. The volcano is still active and nearly half the island remains a designated exclusion zone;
-   **Balaklava Submarine Base, Crimea:** The former top-secret Soviet submarine base that was kept off all official maps and known as Object 825 GTS;
-   **Volterra Psychiatric Hospital, Tuscany, Italy:** Once dubbed 'the place of no return', this long-closed lunatic asylum once housed 6,000 patients who were never allowed to leave.

**Also in the Unexpected Atlas series:** _Atlas of Improbable Places_, _Atlas of Untamed Places_, _Atlas of the Unexpected_ and _Atlas of Vanishing Places_ (WINNER Illustrated Book of the Year - Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020).

### Author Biography

Described as 'one of the country's finest pop culture historians', **Travis Elborough** is an acclaimed author and social commentator who lives in London. His work delves into the ephemera of retro culture as well as the history of London, geography, and a broad range of other subjects. His _Atlas of Vanishing Places_ won the Illustrated Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in 2020, and he has also written _The Bus We Loved,_ a passionate love letter to the Routemaster bus which defined London transport for more than 50 years. His other works include _A Traveller's Year_, _A London Year_, _The Long-Player Goodbye_, _Being A Writer_ and _A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People's Institution_. Travis is a regular contributor to Radio 4 and the _Guardian_, and has penned articles on all aspects of travel and culture, from pirates in the Caribbean to donkeys at the British seaside. He has written for the _Times_, _Sunday Times_, _New Statesman_, _BBC History Magazine_ and _Kinfolk_ among others, and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster, where he teaches creative writing.

**Number of Pages:** 208

**Dimensions:** 1 x 10.3 x 7.4 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** December 07, 2021

## Details

- **Price:** 30.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 30.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Atlas of Forgotten Places: Journey to Abandoned Destinations Around the Globe - Hardcover

---

> Source: [Smart supply deals](https://smartsupplydeals.com/products/atlas-of-forgotten-places-journey-to-abandoned-destinations-around-the-globe-hardcover)
> Updated: 2026-07-23