The best Atlas Obscura stories don’t simply transport you to unexpected places. They introduce you to people you have not had the opportunity to meet before, cultures that are at once new and surprisingly familiar. This year, we traveled from Western Sahara, where the Sahrawi people have found kinship with Cubans, 4,580 miles away, to the disappearing marshes of Iraq, home of the Marsh Arabs of Hawizeh persevere. We sampled kiviaq in Greeland and water from the 1,500-year-old fountains of Kathmandu. Here is a whirlwind trip around the world, through…
