In the inevitable march of time, it’s often wise to let go — to live in the now, to look ahead rather than back. But the past holds countless treasures. It holds the beginnings of our own stories, often shedding as much light on our current moment as the ones that came before.

In the summer 2026 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers explore tales of “Keeping the Past Alive.” From an ancient civilization in Vietnam that’s not as lost as it seems, to the timeless epiphanies of an animated sportscar on Route 66, our journalists delve into the living lessons of history. They introduce us to the effort to protect Ukrainian culture amidst a deadly war, the changing lives of old friends in rural Afghanistan, and a perspective that’s half a billion years old.

In northeastern Afghanistan, contrasting journeys by photojournalist Matty Feurtado interweave across the years. In their Time Travel photo feature, “A Promise Kept in the Wakhan Corridor,” Matty brings us with them as a 19-year-old, charmed by the mountain valleys of the Wakhan Corridor and by the Wakhan people who befriend them. But we find a different world upon their return years later — one where their friends’ lives have been shaped by the growing presence of the Taliban.

As a 12-year-old in the driver’s seat of a Lincoln Town Car on Route 66, Jordan Ranft didn’t know his dad was trying to teach him more than how to drive. But decades after his death, the lessons of Joe Ranft, co-director of Pixar’s iconic film Cars, remain in clues — from Hawaiian shirts and pickle spears to the nature of wonder and grief. In “Legacies and Lightning McQueen,” Jordan returns to the majesty and quirks of Route 66 on a Quest to make sense of it all.

When photojournalist Kang-Chun Cheng receives a call about a van full of priceless art coming from a frontline city in northeastern Ukraine, she follows a story that goes beyond the gory headlines of the war. “Ukraine’s Pièces de Résistance” are the subject of Kang-Chun’s Chasing Demons photo feature, which gives us glimpses of the artists, restorers, and curators in Ukraine’s museums and cities fighting their own high-stakes battles of cultural preservation.

Then, enchanted by the ruins of empire, Vietnam-based writer Joshua Zukas ventures to ancient worship sites of Vietnam’s Champa civilization for this issue’s Portrait feature. But his fantasy of an invisible, long-lost culture frays when he catches glimpses of a more complicated, living truth — one that reveals the power behind “The Moment of Possession.”

And writer Daniel Hudon’s poetic feature, “The Medusa of Time,” keeps Hidden Compass’s own past alive as it makes a reappearance from our archives. Originally published in our autumn 2020 issue, Daniel’s Human and Nature feature brings us to Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, where a primordial seascape lies captured in stone. Here, ancient creatures come to life — aided by artist Henry Sharpe’s illustrations — offering hundreds of millions of years of perspective.

For our readers and journalists who value the lessons and treasures of the past, 

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

In the last decade, 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.

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.

We chase exposure as a beacon of freedom and knowledge. We harness it to wield against our enemies. We hope it heals the wounds within and between us. In the blinding light, all can be revealed — but it’s the struggles of exposure that weave exceptional tales.

In the winter 2026 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers chronicle the power and vulnerability born from “Struggles of Exposure.” They take us from an 18th-century Calcutta prison cell to a Mongolian avalanche site, chronicle campaigns for freedom of the press and freedom of religion, and weigh impossible questions that leave old friends estranged and former nomads rootless.

For our Time Travel department, Kolkata-based journalist Sugato Mukherjee walks through modern-day scenes — from newspaper hawkers in a pre-dawn drizzle to historic, ornate mansions — that hint at powers that once battled here. On one side is Mukherjee’s journalistic predecessor, James Hicky, an Irishman who founded India’s first newspaper, the Bengal Gazette, and then risked his life to brandish it against corruption and abuse of power. On the other, the British East India Company, a covetous behemoth intent on silencing “The Dissension of the Prison Printer.”

Returning to our pages with a Portrait that originally ran in our summer 2023 issue, photojournalist Rachel Wisniewski pivots to freedom of religion in “A Devilish Pursuit.” Through a compelling blend of narrative and images, Wisniewski’s photo feature introduces us to members of the Satanic Temple, whose modern-day battle for separation of church and state harkens back to the Salem witch trials, and the fate of one member’s 17th-century ancestor.

Deep in Mongolia’s northern taiga, an archaeological expedition braves grueling terrain in search of “The Reindeer Graveyard.” For our Quest department, archaeologist and photojournalist Andrew Califf kicks off the year as our 2026 storyteller in residence with a photo feature that focuses on a  cast of scientists and Dukha herders who meet at the site of disaster and, hopefully, discovery.

From the mountains of Mongolia we turn to the mountains of New York, where development threatens or promises to expose a town to the masses. Divided by the “Schism” are two lifelong friends, estranged by the future of the Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail. In our Human & Nature feature, journalist Omar Drissi takes us to the village of Cold Spring — a place of contradiction, beauty, and a nagging question. Is the value of bringing people together worth the cost of tearing a town apart?

Alongside the imposing Pir Panjal mountains in Kashmir, something unnamed is happening in the pastoralist Guijjar and nomadic Bakarwal communities. In her evocative Chasing Demons feature with original illustration by Radha Ramachandran, journalist Mir Seeneen chronicles the pain of loss long ignored and the community of healing out loud — paying a poetic homage to those “Remembering a Nomadic Sky.”

For our readers and storytellers who are brave enough to face the light,

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.