I found a website last week that shows every book mentioned in The New York Times over the last decade, organized by publication date, with links to reviews and purchase options. It’s beautiful, functional, and completely unknown to anyone I’ve told about it.
This is the internet I love. Not the algorithmic feeds and SEO-optimized content farms. Not the same fifteen websites everyone visits. But the weird, wonderful, handcrafted corners built by people who just wanted something to exist.
These places are hard to find. They don’t advertise. They don’t optimize for search engines. They exist quietly, waiting for someone to stumble across them through a random link or word-of-mouth recommendation.
The problem is that when you do find them, they’re easy to lose again. You bookmark them in a folder you’ll never look at, or leave them in a tab that eventually closes, or just forget they exist until months later when you vaguely remember “that website about books” and can’t find it again.
I’ve been collecting these hidden corners for years. Places that made me stop and think “wait, this exists?” Sites that solve problems I didn’t know could be solved. Communities doing interesting things far from mainstream attention.
Here are eighteen of them. Not the most popular or the most useful (though many are both). Just places worth knowing about and worth being able to find again when you need them.
For Learning Things You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Learn#
1. OpenCulture: Free Educational Resources Nobody Told You About#
OpenCulture aggregates free educational content from around the internet. Free courses from top universities. Audiobooks in the public domain. Classic films. Language lessons. Historical recordings.
It’s not flashy. The design is basic. But the curation is excellent and the resources are genuinely free, not “free trial” or “freemium.” Just actual educational content available to anyone.
The archive goes back years, so there’s depth beyond just whatever’s popular now. You can lose hours browsing categories you never knew you were interested in.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want to learn something new without paying for courses or dealing with platform lock-in. This is self-directed education done right.
2. Brain Pickings (The Marginalian): Long-Form Thinking About Everything#
Maria Popova has been writing The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) for over fifteen years. Dense, interconnected essays about art, science, philosophy, literature, and how they all connect.
Each piece is deeply researched and genuinely thoughtful. In a web of hot takes and shallow content, this is the opposite. Reading it feels like slowing down and thinking deeply about ideas that matter.
The archive is massive. You could spend months exploring and not exhaust it.
Why you’ll want to revisit: For those times when you want substance over speed. When you’re tired of disposable content and want something that rewards attention.
3. Wait But Why: Explaining Complex Things Through Stick Figures#
Tim Urban explains everything from artificial intelligence to procrastination through long-form posts with stick figure illustrations. The length is intimidating (some posts are 20,000+ words), but the writing is engaging enough that you’ll read the whole thing.
The topics range from practical (how to pick a career) to existential (what happens when we die) to technological (why AI might be the most important thing happening).
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you need to understand something complex but don’t want academic density or oversimplified explanations. This hits the sweet spot of thorough and accessible.
For Making Better Decisions and Thinking Clearly#
4. Farnam Street: Mental Models for Everything#
Shane Parrish writes about mental models, decision-making, and clear thinking. The blog covers concepts from multiple disciplines and shows how to actually apply them to real decisions.
It’s not self-help platitudes. It’s practical frameworks backed by research and explained clearly. The reading lists alone are worth bookmarking.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you’re facing a difficult decision or want to think more clearly about problems. Having access to useful mental models is surprisingly practical.
5. LessWrong: Rationality Community Discussion#
LessWrong is a community blog about rationality, decision theory, philosophy, and effective thinking. The writing quality varies (it’s user-generated), but the best posts are genuinely insightful.
Topics range from highly practical (how to actually change your mind) to extremely theoretical (decision theory edge cases). The community takes thinking seriously in ways that are both admirable and occasionally amusing.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want to think more rigorously about basically anything. Also for finding people who care deeply about being less wrong about things.
For Creative Inspiration That’s Not Pinterest#
6. It’s Nice That: Creative Work You Haven’t Seen#
It’s Nice That covers creative work across disciplines: graphic design, illustration, photography, architecture, art, and more. The curation is excellent and international in scope.
Unlike many design blogs, they go beyond just pretty pictures. Most posts include context about the work, interviews with creators, and thoughtful analysis about what makes the work interesting.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you need creative inspiration that’s current but not just following trends. The breadth means you’ll always find something unexpected.
7. Colossal: Art That Makes You Stop Scrolling#
Colossal features art, design, and visual culture. Painting, sculpture, textiles, installations, street art, and everything in between. The selection consistently highlights work that’s both technically impressive and conceptually interesting.
The photography is excellent and the writing provides enough context to understand why each piece matters without being overly academic.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want to see what’s happening in contemporary art without going to galleries or wading through art world pretension.
8. Brutalist Websites: When Ugly Is the Point#
Brutalist Websites celebrates web design that rejects conventional beauty in favor of raw, unpolished aesthetics. Some of it is genuinely ugly. Some is surprisingly effective. All of it is interesting.
It’s a useful counterpoint to the sameness of modern web design where everything looks like everything else. Sometimes breaking rules produces better results than following them.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you’re tired of making things look “professional” and want permission to try something weird. Also just for seeing how far you can push web design conventions.
For Tools That Solve Annoying Problems#
9. The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Understanding Global Trade#
This Harvard-built tool visualizes global trade and economic data in ways that make complex relationships comprehensible. See what countries export, how economies are connected, and how trade patterns have changed over time.
It’s beautiful and functional. The data visualization is excellent. And it makes economics genuinely interesting even if you thought you didn’t care about trade patterns.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want to understand global economics without reading textbooks. The visualizations make patterns obvious that would be invisible in spreadsheets.
10. Terms of Service; Didn’t Read: What You’re Actually Agreeing To#
ToS;DR rates and summarizes the terms of service for popular online services. Instead of reading fifty pages of legalese, you get a clear grade and highlights of important clauses.
It’s crowdsourced and transparent about ratings methodology. Not perfect, but vastly better than blindly accepting terms you’ll never read.
Why you’ll want to revisit: Before signing up for new services or when you want to understand what you’ve already agreed to. Privacy matters, and this makes it accessible.
11. Product Hunt Time Machine: Seeing What Was Hot When#
Product Hunt’s Time Machine shows you the most popular products from any day in their history. See what people were excited about in 2015, 2018, or last month.
It’s both nostalgic and useful for understanding how quickly tech trends move. Half the “revolutionary” products from three years ago no longer exist.
Why you’ll want to revisit: For context about startup/tech trends, finding older products that might have solved your problem, or just seeing how much has changed recently.
For Understanding the World Better#
12. Our World in Data: Making Sense of Global Trends#
Our World in Data presents research and statistics about global issues in accessible, visual formats. Climate change, poverty, health, education, violence, and more, all backed by rigorous research and presented clearly.
It’s optimistic without being naive, showing both problems and progress. The visualizations make trends comprehensible that would be overwhelming as raw data.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want actual data about how the world is changing instead of vibes-based arguments. Essential for thinking clearly about big issues.
13. Atlas Obscura: The World’s Hidden Wonders#
Atlas Obscura catalogs unusual, obscure, and overlooked places worldwide. Abandoned buildings, weird museums, natural phenomena, historical oddities. Each entry includes context, photos, and visitor information.
It’s travel inspiration that goes beyond standard tourist destinations. The world is stranger and more interesting than mainstream travel guides suggest.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you’re planning travel and want to see something genuinely unusual. Or just when you want to remember the world contains more wonder than your daily routine suggests.
14. Radio Garden: Every Radio Station, Everywhere#
Spin a globe and click anywhere to hear live radio from that location. It’s simple, beautiful, and surprisingly moving to hear a morning show from Mongolia or late-night jazz from Brazil.
There’s something profound about being able to instantly hear what’s playing on the other side of the world. It makes the planet feel both bigger and smaller simultaneously.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you want to feel connected to somewhere else, or hear music you’d never find algorithmically, or just remember how big and varied the world actually is.
For Building Things and Learning How#
15. Useful Tools for Web Developers: The Name Says It All#
This collection of web development tools covers everything: code formatters, API testers, image optimizers, regex testers, color pickers, and dozens more. All free, all browser-based, all legitimately useful.
It’s not pretty, but it’s comprehensive. Bookmark it once and you’ll return constantly when you need a quick tool for some specific task.
Why you’ll want to revisit: Every time you need to minify something, test an API, convert a file format, or use any of the hundreds of small utilities developers need regularly.
16. Roadmap.sh: Learning Paths for Tech Skills#
Roadmap.sh provides visual learning paths for different tech roles and skills. Want to learn frontend development? Here’s a structured path showing what to learn in what order. Same for backend, DevOps, design, and more.
The roadmaps are community-maintained and practical. They won’t teach you the skills, but they’ll show you what skills exist and how they connect.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you’re learning something new in tech and want a structured overview of what to study. Better than random tutorials because it shows the whole landscape.
For Pure Wonder and Delight#
17. The Scale of the Universe: Perspective in a Scroll#
Scroll from the smallest known particles to the observable universe. Everything is to scale. It’s educational and perspective-shifting in equal measure.
You’ll start with quantum foam and end with the cosmic web, passing through cells, humans, planets, and galaxies along the way. Five minutes of scrolling that makes you reconsider your place in existence.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you need perspective. When your problems feel overwhelming. When you want to remember how impossibly small and large reality is simultaneously.
18. Window Swap: Views From Other People’s Windows#
People submit videos from their windows. You click and see what someone in Amsterdam, Tokyo, or rural Montana is looking at right now. Rain on cobblestones. Cats in gardens. City traffic. Mountain views.
It’s simple and oddly intimate. Just looking at what other people see when they look outside. Sometimes that’s enough.
Why you’ll want to revisit: When you’re feeling trapped in your current environment and want to see somewhere else. Or just when you want to remember other people are also looking out windows.
How to Actually Save These for Later#
The whole point of finding these hidden corners is being able to find them again when you need them. That requires better organization than just browser bookmarks or one giant folder.
When I find sites like these, I add them to specific collections on stashed.in based on why I’ll want them later. Not by category (that’s how things get lost), but by use case.
I have a stash called “When I Need Perspective” with sites like Scale of the Universe and Window Swap. Another called “Learning New Things” with OpenCulture and Roadmap.sh. One called “Creative Unblocking” with It’s Nice That and Brutalist Websites.
The visual headers on each stash remind me what’s inside without needing to remember specific titles. When I need creative inspiration, I’m looking for the stash with the colorful, creative header, not trying to remember if I filed things under “Design” or “Inspiration.”
Some stashes are public (my “Best Web Discoveries” collection that I share with friends). Others are private (personal learning goals I’m not ready to share). The flexibility means everything can live in one system without forcing it all to be the same level of public.
The alternative is bookmarking everything and never looking at bookmarks again. Or worse, not bookmarking things and just hoping you’ll remember that one site about global trade visualizations when you need it three months from now.
Why These Places Matter#
These hidden corners matter not because they’re useful (though many are), but because they represent a different vision of what the internet could be.
Not platforms optimizing for engagement and ad revenue. Not algorithmic feeds designed to keep you scrolling. But people building things because they want those things to exist. Sharing knowledge without paywalls. Creating experiences for their own sake.
The internet is increasingly dominated by a handful of giant platforms. But in the margins, people are still making wonderful, weird, useful things just because they can.
Finding and supporting these places is both practically valuable and philosophically important. You get tools, knowledge, and experiences you won’t find on mainstream platforms. And you participate in a version of the web that’s about creation and sharing rather than extraction and monetization.
Building Your Own Collection of Hidden Corners#
These eighteen are just starting points. The internet has thousands of hidden corners worth knowing about. Building your own collection of them becomes its own reward.
When you find something genuinely interesting, save it properly. Not just a bookmark, but in a collection where you’ll actually find it later. Add context about what it is and why it matters. Give it a home with similar discoveries.
Share things you find with people who’d appreciate them. Not broadcasting to everyone, but genuine “I thought you’d find this interesting” sharing. That’s how most of these places get discovered.
And keep exploring beyond the first page of search results, beyond what algorithms recommend, beyond the mainstream platforms. The best parts of the internet are often the least visible.
Start Your Exploration#
Pick three from this list that genuinely interest you. Actually visit them, not just mentally noting that they sound cool. Spend twenty minutes exploring each one.
If they’re valuable, save them to a collection you’ll actually check later. If they’re not, that’s fine. Keep exploring until you find the hidden corners that work for you.
The internet is vast. Most of it is forgettable. But scattered throughout are these places worth returning to. Worth sharing. Worth preserving access to.
Build your collection of them. Organize them so you’ll actually use them. Share them when you find people who’d appreciate them.
Your internet experience doesn’t have to be just the same fifteen websites everyone else uses. There’s more out there. Go find it.
