Safe Harbor

Much lies in the space between danger and safe harbor, from treacherous mountains to deadly forests to merely a dozen feet of sand. Within these topographies the greatest of dramas unfold, featuring a captivating range of bravery, tragedy, and hope.

In the spring 2026 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers bring us stories of “Safe Harbor.” They introduce us to WWII refugees attempting to cross borders, Iranian nomads pursuing summer pastures for their livestock, and a diplomat working to protect Iraqi artifacts. But in this issue, it’s not only humans who seek safety. There are other animals searching, too — from towering matriarch elephants to brand-new hatchlings of an ancient marine species.

Facing the perilous cliff of a smugglers’ route on the French-Swiss border, two women, separated by more than eight decades of history, summon their bravery. Author Mike Bernhardt joins his wife, Yvonne, to retrace her family’s flight from Nazi occupation. But his Time Travel feature also includes the nailbiting journey of Yvonne’s mother, a teenager putting her life in the hands of strangers and “Trusting the Smugglers’ Route.”

Then, setting off across rugged mountains with a family of Bakhtiari nomads, Swiss photojournalist Claudio Sieber chronicles the annual Kooch — an increasingly rare migration to high-altitude summer pastures. The roots of Persia’s nomadic pastoralism stretch back millennia, but change is afoot. “Dreaming with Iran’s Bakhtiari” is a Portrait photo feature that brings us across the wilderness and examines the rose-tinted nature of yearning.

In Dhenkanal, a district in the East Indian state of Odisha, an escalating conflict has claimed thousands of lives. For his Chasing Demons feature, journalist Colin Daileda introduces us to the communities at war. But the origin of this escalation between endangered elephants and villagers lies elsewhere: in a transforming landscape that not only imperils safety but also demands people make hard decisions in the balance of “War and Peace.”

As a former BBC editor who once covered the U.S.-led coalition’s invasion of Iraq, Suzanne Ruggi seeks something deeper than headlines during her first visit to the country. Who better to follow than a witty British writer, diplomat, and archaeologist with a challenging legacy? Gertrude Bell died a century ago, but luckily, “The Desert Queen’s Guide to Baghdad” still brings the city to life. Beyond an unpublished manuscript, Bell’s Quest lives on in the artifacts she fought to protect.

Finally, journalist Yasaswini Sampathkumar brings us to the crowded beaches of Chennai for a Human & Nature feature from the Hidden Compass archives. In this story from our autumn 2019 issue, we meet the “Guardians of an Ancient Species,” a coalition of land dwellers protecting a creature that crosses vast oceans just as its ancestors did 100 million years ago — only to encounter a different world on land.

For our readers and journalists who champion stories of those seeking safe harbor,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

In the last nine years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. Every issue of Hidden Compass will now feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.