
Stoke your curiosity. Ignite a movement.
Explorers are in. Are you?
Immersive. Mind-expanding. Nourishing. Hidden Compass is a women-founded media company ending the era of junk food media by uniting audiences — like you — with the humans, causes, and possibilities behind award-winning stories and groundbreaking expeditions.
Our business model isn’t driven by clickbait and selling user data, but instead inspires patrons of journalism and forges an Alliance to pave the way to a new future — one where exploration takes us to the frontiers of understanding. Are you in?
Explore the Latest Issue
Summer 2023
Entwined with Phantoms
A Note From the Editors
Often, the departed leave traces behind. Sometimes, their imprints are small. Other times, they intertwine with our lives in inexorable ways. In the summer 2023 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories that explore how phantoms of the past haunt the present — in ways that terrify us, enlighten us, and change…


Summer 2023
Entwined with Phantoms
A Note from the Editors
Often, the departed leave traces behind. Sometimes, their imprints are small. Other times, they intertwine with our lives in inexorable ways.
In the summer 2023 issue of Hidden Compass, we bring you five stories that explore how phantoms of the past haunt the present — in ways that terrify us, enlighten us, and change us forever.
Pursuing the lost histories of refugees caught in the whirlwind of World War II, writer Mike Bernhardt heads to the windswept coast of Ireland’s Mullet Peninsula. Once there, his multi-decade Quest broadens beyond the stories of family to those of strangers who risked their lives in The Tides of War.
Thousands of miles and several decades away, in an unlikely setting for A Devilish Pursuit, an after-school group wages their own battle. In photojournalist Rachel Wisniewski’s Portrait story and photo feature, that group is at the center of a pending legal conflict where tyrannies of the past permeate the present. With the separation of church and state at stake, the harrowing experience of one mother’s 17th-century ancestor is mirrored in the contemporary fight.
Then, in our Human & Nature feature, with original artwork by Annie Davidson, writer and neuroscientist Dr. Irene Salter takes us through the streets of Rome and into the brains of her research subjects. Playing with perspective, Salter’s Thought Experiment illuminates the torment of a stolen connection that allows her to rewire her own mind.
Travel journalist Robin Catalano’s perspective also shifts as she delves into the incredible wealth of the colonial spice trade in her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. In her Time Travel feature, Catalano discovers fragments of erased stories beneath the opulence of some of the nation’s first millionaires. Those stories, alongside original artwork by Emily Larsen, come to life in The Bitter Taste of Fortune.
And caught in A Tempest of Dread at the End of the World, writer Ellen Murray takes on Patagonia’s W Trek in our Chasing Demons feature. There, amongst the glaciers and roaring winds, she braves the panic of a memory that has stalked her for months, and sets out on a harrowing path of hope.
With gratitude for all the storytellers and readers whose lives are entwined with our own,
Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders
Thanks to You, the Future of Journalism is Bright
Every Hidden Compass story is published alongside a fundraising campaign. 50% of proceeds support Hidden Compass, and 50% go directly to each storyteller — on top of their pay. Every dollar brings us closer to a future that recognizes and honors the partnership between journalists, publications, and you. Look how much we’ve raised so far!
$0
Meet Your Heroes
This Issue’s Featured Journalists and Storytellers






Find your story.
Choose a Theme to Explore
Journey alongside characters in pursuit of elusive truths. Travel through extreme landscapes, to the far reaches of the planet, and into the unknown.
Get to know extraordinary characters from around the world — individuals, cultures, places, creatures, and even objects.
Investigate the relationship between humankind and the planet. Come face-to-face with Nature as an unpredictable danger, a wise teacher, and a precarious organism.
Delve into the dark and difficult aspects of a place, even when the darkness exists only in the narrator. Investigative pieces, historical exposés, and tales of narrators immersed in danger.
Inhabit the past, present, and future of a place. Unearth layers of ancient legends and traditions; probe the transient nature of the current moment; and venture out into prediction, peril, and possibility.
Photo: Dr. Gilad Fiskus
Photo: Sivani Babu
Photo: Kim F. Stone
Photo: Sivani Babu
Photo: Sugato Mukherjee
Photo: Geraint Rowland
Find your story.
Choose a Theme to Explore

Photo: Sivani Babu
01
Quest
Journey alongside characters in pursuit of elusive truths. Travel through extreme landscapes, to the far reaches of the planet, and into the unknown.
Photo: Sivani Babu