I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

A little while ago, I talked to someone who was in the process of this really big project.

Her name is Jane August, and she made it her goal to visit every museum in

New York City, all 200 of them. It was a really fun conversation. If you're planning to spend

time in New York, you should go back and listen. Then after that, we here at the show heard

about someone else who is working on a very similar project, except he is doing it in Los Angeles,

where there are over 800 museums on the list. It turns out this is kind of a thing,

and we are here for it. Todd LaRue has personally visited nearly every single one of those

800 museums. He published a book that highlights 64 of them. It's called

Also On View, Unique and Unexpected Museums of Greater Los Angeles. And he has a website for the

project that has a map of all 800. As a fellow Angelino, I can say, I am definitely going to be

checking this out. Todd is here with me today to talk

about this amazing and extremely ambitious project. Hey, Todd. Hey, Kelly. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks for coming on. I'm not going to say this any other way. This project is bonkers,

right? Like this is... Yeah, that's fair to say.

Completely just wild undertaking.

How did you start it?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I grew up in rural South Dakota, and I was always interested in unique sort of

roadside places like the world famous Corn Palace, which was an hour away, which is short

distance in those parts.

Or, you know, Wall Drug, another famous South Dakota attraction.

...