Sometimes it’s just out of reach. Sometimes it’s impossibly far away. But no matter the distance, hope moves us to remarkable places and soothes the darkest of our troubles.

In the summer 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers — including both of our co-founders — are “Searching for Hope.” They chase it from the highways of American interstates to the expanse of the open ocean, facing disasters both natural and human, connecting with butterflies, midwives, and an insufferable historical hero. None emerge the same. Will you?

First, in the bougainvillea-filled courtyards of Oaxaca City, Mexico, Hidden Compass co-founder Sabine K. Bergmann threads herself into a remarkable network of midwives at an abortion training. Following these women to rural regions and cartel-controlled territories as they seek the girls and women who need them, Sabine’s Portrait feature, “Woven Together by Choice,” laces their stories into the legacies of Zapotec pyramids and bright Oaxacan textiles — revealing striking truths about the struggle and hope of grassroots reproductive care.

And from London, Kentucky to Horseshoe Beach, Florida, Hidden Compass co-founder Sivani Babu reports from her American Red Cross deployments to communities struck by a convergence of disasters — and threatened by a shift in federal disaster management. Inspired by a sign on a boarded-up window, Sivani’s Human & Nature feature explores the resilience of those in the path of destruction and the impact of their appeal: “Do Not Destroy.”

From land, we take to the sea. Inspired by a historic round-the-world ocean voyage, writer and photographer Jordan Winters joins a crew from more than 40 nations aboard the Oosterschelde, a tall ship following “In the Wake of Darwin.” Surrounded by scientists and rattled by the sea crossing from Tasmania to New Zealand, Jordan chronicles her Quest to tap into the young naturalist Charles Darwin’s years aboard the HMS Beagle, creating a photo feature that churns up insights on beauty, paradox, shortcomings, and triumph.

Then, for the summer issue’s Chasing Demons story and second photo feature, journalist Jodi Cash heads across the United States with her husband in an old Chevy van. In the storm of COVID-19 and a sudden death in the family, Jodi seeks the promise of the open road — as many have done before her. But on “The Gilded Road,” the hope and possibility of the American interstate is fractured, and the journey to Truth or Consequences is winding.

Finally, circling back from our spring 2020 issue, writer Martha Ezell’s “Journey of a Golden Soul” follows the multigenerational migration of millions across the North American continent. Her Portrait story takes us to Mexico’s Sierra Madre range, where she finds an astonishing kaleidoscope of wings, and chronicles the impressive yet fragile comeback of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.

For our readers and storytellers who never stop reaching for hope,

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

In the last few 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. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.

In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, an unsolvable riddle emerges from the realms of the absurd, where oddities and curiosities throw logic out the window. Like in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we often find ourselves confronting enigmas that are nonsensical, scary, and weird — but for many of us, they also happen to be real.

In the spring 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, “A Raven Like a Writing Desk,” five storytellers pursue insight within the paradoxes of the unexplainable. Join them as they meet mischievous swimming monkeys, chronicle community in a refuge that perhaps shouldn’t exist, marvel at the heartbreaking art of decay, visit the ruins of a socialist Disneyland, and seek catharsis for a tragedy they never experienced.

For travel writer Gary Singh, a nagging sense of loss permeated decades of his reporting in San José, California. With the help of a discovery in his mom’s closet, that unexplainable feeling catapulted him on a Quest to Jalandhar, India. There, Gary faces the impact of the sudden haphazard borders imposed by Partition. The bloodshed of that era, which created the largest single mass migration event in human history, ripples forward in coincidences, revealing how “Truth is the Timeless One.”

Meanwhile, kayaking in the crystalline waters of Silver Springs State Park, Florida, writer Melissa Hart encounters the bewildering history of a place “Where Greed Grows Wild.” In her Human and Nature feature, Melissa bears witness to centuries of prosperity, exploitation, and foolishness, from mammoth hunters to alligator wrestlers to James Bond in scuba gear. But in the spectacle lies a riddle about the darker side of love. 

Then, within the walls of the Kreenholm textile factory — a vast, abandoned complex in Narva, Estonia — writer and photographer Tim Bird admires the beauty of decay. For visit after visit, Tim meets former factory workers whose memories of bustling activity contrast with the frost-sparkled emptiness captured in Tim’s photo feature and Portrait story. But the joyful recollections of “The Lost Cathedrals of Industry” harken back to an imperial era that may best be left behind — yet still looms across the border.

And on a multi-year bicycle ride down the length of South America, journalists Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held seek respite in the mountain town of Contratación, Colombia. In their Chasing Demons feature, “Sanctum Sanatorium,” a story of old cruelties and misunderstood disease is more modern than expected — and the camaraderie of patients with leprosy raises a bigger question.

Finally, “The Disneyland of Socialism’s Demise” brings its own riddles from the Hidden Compass archives. First published seven years ago in our summer 2018 issue, this Time Travel feature chronicles the history of Spreepark — a crumbling theme park haunted by the nostalgia of communist East Germany. Beside its gently screaming ferris wheel, writer Krishan Coupland considers its bizarre past and uncertain future.

For our readers and storytellers who appreciate all manners of the absurd,

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

In the last few 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. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.

When we experience the jarring dissonance of conflicting forces, we may be tempted to turn away. But the clash of the inharmonious is not only global and unavoidable — it’s often illuminating.

In the winter 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers take us straight into the “Dissonance” — whether of industry and ecology, war and healing, nostalgia and progression. And from vast deserts to dark caverns to buzzing wetlands, hints of resolution arise.

In 2007, in the largest hot desert on Earth, explorer James Michael Dorsey pursues his childhood dream of visiting Timbuktu. But as he follows one of Mali’s Imazighen people into a sea of sand, James enters an unexpected world of historical wonders and escalating tension. In our Time Travel feature, amid the discord, he is swept into an underground effort mysteriously tied to “Libraries Beneath the Sand.”

Then, for our Human & Nature feature, alongside commissioned illustrations from artist Casi Gail Fordham, journalist Tristan Bove brings us to biodiverse Sri Lanka, rich with rain forests, coral reefs, and waterways that wind through urban centers. But something hopeful buzzes within this “Cacophony in the Indian Ocean” — a possible alliance of seemingly irreconcilable forces. Alongside researchers and entrepreneurs, through wetlands and parks, Tristan searches for the harmony of economic growth and ecological vibrancy.

For photographer and storyteller Olivier Guiberteau, the turbulence of personal grief and the onset of war meet along the 400-mile Jordan Trail. In his Chasing Demons photo feature, Olivier experiences the heartwrenching paradoxes of “The Gone-But-Also-Everlasting Theory” of grief, expecting the impossible and fearing the inescapable.

Meanwhile, in one of Belize’s largest caves, anthropologist and writer Shoshi Parks is on a Quest to save precious Maya relics from the illegal antiquities trade. But as she delves beyond the reach of the sun, she discovers much more has been “Forgotten in the Maddening Darkness.” There, in the captivating caverns of stalactites and stalagmites, delicate questions of history and ownership emerge.

And finally, the “Old Clocks” of Pyramiden keep an odd count of time. In this once-thriving Soviet town turned nearly abandoned outpost in Arctic Norway, the past is both preserved and lost, memories become monuments, and even a ghost town has a mayor. It’s a fitting Portrait to appear once again, five years after writer Kelsey Camacho and photographer Dagmara Wojtanowicz brought it to life for our summer 2020 issue, because its story is — in so many ways — timeless.

For our readers and storytellers who brave the dissonance and crave resolution,

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

In the last few 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. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in our issue.