About

What Is This Place?

Cool Things In Random Places is a blog for the endlessly curious — a growing collection of eclectic cultural phenomena, unique traditions, and unusual global curiosities. From Moko Jumbies in Trinidad and Tobago to the Jiang Shi of Chinese folklore, from the Fantasy Coffin Industry of Ghana to the Ship Breakers of Bangladesh, every post explores something surprising, overlooked, or just plain fascinating.

The site spans eight regions — Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America, and the Pacific — plus a catch-all World Beat category for stories that defy geography. Posts were published between November 2007 and September 2008, capturing a snapshot of global oddities at that moment in time.

At its core, this site is a celebration of the wonderfully strange corners of our world. It thrives on the kind of curiosity that leads you down a rabbit hole at two in the morning, discovering that somewhere in Italy, thousands of people gather annually to hurl oranges at one another in a centuries-old carnival battle. Or that deep in the Atacama Desert, a giant hand rises from the earth, a sculpture that seems to wave at passing travelers. These are the moments the blog captures—the unexpected, the bizarre, the traditions that make you pause and wonder how they came to be.

The content spans continents and centuries, from the volcanic landscapes of the Pacific to the dense caves of Asia. You might stumble upon an underwater park in the Caribbean, a giant diamond pit in Siberia, or a residential building shaped like a giant cage. The site doesn't just list facts; it invites you into the story behind each curiosity. Whether it's the tallest sculpture in Europe or the largest cave in the world, every entry is written with a sense of wonder and a desire to share the strange beauty found in random places across the globe.

More than a travel blog, this is a home for the armchair adventurer and the trivia enthusiast alike. It acknowledges that the world is full of oddities that don't fit neatly into guidebooks—like the crocodile farms in Australia or the burning door of a volcanic crater. Each post is a small invitation to explore something new, to read a comment thread, to click through to another strange discovery. It’s a reminder that even in the most unexpected places, there is something cool waiting to be found.