Welcome, Explorer!

Jacqueline writes about, thinks about, and photographs America’s public lands.

Sivani Babu is the co-founder, co-CEO, and creative director of Hidden Compass. By merging journalism, art, and exploration, she tells stories that offer perspective, context, and an awe-inspiring sense of scale to the human experience.

Kelsey Camacho focuses on identity and landscape in the Arctic. She’s also training for her first dogsledding race.

Sugato Mukherjee is a Kolkata, India-based photographer and writer whose work on the sulfur miners of East Java was recognized by UNESCO.

Laine Gonzales is a biologist and high school science teacher. When school is not in session, she’s typically on the road.

Erin Byrne’s books, travel essays, poetry, fiction, films, workshops, and events capture the mystical transformations unleashed by travel and connections across the globe.

Sonya Pevzner’s experience as a queer Russian-Jewish refugee informs much of her work, from storytelling to activism.

Will Cordeiro cannot drive a car; is not on social media; and may or may not be a human.

Martha Ezell is a freelance writer based in Petaluma, California. After careers in documentary filmmaking and academic technology, she now devotes her time to writing and travel.

Shoshi Parks is an anthropologist turned writer of the quirky and fascinating.

Jordan Ranft is a writer and behavioral healthcare worker from the Bay Area. He enjoys writing about arts, culture, the environment, and the strange and oftentimes unnerving intersection between societal artifice and the natural world.

Karen Green is a writer, mother, feminist, Canuck, and always up for a new journey and a hot coffee.

Alexandria is a writer, educator, and community advocate.

Hayli Nicole is a perpetual traveler, collector of stories, and lover of all things mundane.

Karen Burshtein is an independent writer, editor, and translator who writes about all aspects of Canadian culture and history.

Shannon Donaghy is a queer poet, writer, and world traveler from Philadelphia, PA.

Kelly A. Harrison, losing track of all the amazing things she’s done, thanks the gods for digital photos and Adobe products.

Erhan Kahveci is a Milan-based documentary photographer driven by a desire to see people and the hidden parts of the world, and capture society through his images.

Traveling and writing full-time (until COVID!), Barbara Barrielle writes about wine and travel and is an equal opportunity traveler. She loves to go everywhere and meet the locals, the heart of travel.

After spending nearly a decade as a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, Robert Annis finally broke free of the shackles of gainful employment and now freelances full-time, specializing in outdoor-travel journalism.

Yasaswini Sampathkumar is a writer and recovering scientist who’s learning to be as sustainable as her grandmother.

Clara Milo is a photographer and filmmaker who creates surrealist universes to better understand the world around her.

Despite her yoga and yogurt tendencies, author Amanda Castleman is a former wilderness guide who remains happiest when grubbing around in nature.

Kori Perten is a writer and editor based in the Boston area—when she’s not traveling the globe, that is.

Lavanya Sunkara is a New York City-based writer who focuses on sustainable travel, conservation, and adventure.

Brandon McWilliams is a writer, outdoor educator, and college student who tells stories to encourage people to think about how they treat the world around them.

Kim F. Stone is a lady who loves the rhythm of a shutter and hoofbeats.

Victoria Sanderson is a restless writer always googling new adventures.

Oakland-based Jeff Greenwald remains either the world’s most obscure well-known travel writer, or the best-known obscure travel writer.

Chase Nelson is a poet-explorer who likes howling at the moon, skinny dipping in alpine lakes, and laughing until it hurts at big tables full of strangers in foreign lands.

Annelise Jolley is a San Diego-based journalist and essayist who writes about food, travel, and the terrain between.

Dr. Gilad Fiskus is a cultural photographer whose career as a dentist influences the way he photographs people as he travels the world.

Jayme Moye is an American-Canadian writer based in the mountains of British Columbia.

Ashley Seashore is a Marin County-based writer who wears flip flops with abandon.

Ever curious and hungry for adventure, Elaine Masters can’t resist ducking into doorways and pulling over on the side of the road in pursuit of a story.

Author of “The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George,” and of “How to Be a Travel Writer,” the world’s bestselling travel writing guide, Don George is a legendary travel writer and editor. He is currently Editor at Large for National Geographic Travel.

Liz Shemaria is a founding editor at Hidden Compass, an award-winning journalist, and a third-generation Northern Californian who has trekked solo in the Himalaya, interviewed artists in military-ruled Burma, and rode an overnight train across Egypt on her birthday.

Valerie Stimac is an Oakland-based space tourism and travel writer who has spent time living in Alaska, London, and the Pacific Northwest.

Mike Bernhardt is an eclectic writer who loves the water, be it diving coral reefs in Indonesia, swimming with sea lions in the Galápagos, or researching drowned ancestors off the coast of Ireland.

Sabine K. Bergmann is the co-founder and co-CEO of Hidden Compass. She’s also an award-winning journalist whose cinematic stories invite readers to explore places and characters who connect us to the grand tapestry of human wisdom, kinship, and purpose.

Garrett Martin is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer, and conservationist who’s proud to call southern Appalachia his home.

Krishan Coupland earned an MA in creative writing, won the Manchester Fiction Prize, and is unduly preoccupied with theme parks.

Allison Nicole Smith is a New York City-based freelance writer, as well as a student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she is learning how to not use the Oxford comma.

Keith Skinner is an award-winning writer who is endlessly curious about the why of things.

From the 1975 British Everest Expedition to the vineyards of the world, Robert Holmes’ career as one of the world’s most successful and prolific travel photographers has extended more than 40 years.

James Michael Dorsey is an award-winning author, and explorer, who has spent decades documenting vanishing cultures in Africa and Asia.

Melissa is a journalist and photographer with work in the Washington Post, BBC Travel, and NPR, among many others.

Nicholas is a lifelong adventurer and traveler with a knack for finding unexpected ways into unusual situations — like guest DJ-ing on Zambian national radio.

Jodi Cash is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and expedition leader for “The Music of Care.” She’s also a documentary filmmaker on a quest for characters and secluded swimming holes.

Award-winning travel writer and photographer Tania Romanov made her first international trip at six months old — as a refugee — and hasn’t stopped traveling since.

Louisa Deasey is a Francophile based in Melbourne, Australia who makes up for it by drinking coffee from a soup-sized bowl each morning.

Hudson Lindenberger lives to tell the stories that describe life, whatever they may be.

Rachel Pieh Jones writes about life at the crossroads of faith and culture. Her work is influenced by living in the Horn of Africa, raising Third Culture Kids, and adventurous exploration of the natural world.

Russell’s parents threw him in the ocean when he was five years old. He cried for a minute but then never got out. He’s a marine biologist, improviser, storyteller, writer, and nature lover.

Emilienne Malfatto is an award-winning photojournalist covering post-conflict and social issues, mostly in Iraq.

Jennifer is a Texas-based writer who travels in search of good conversation, tasty ice cream, fast water slides, and harsh moonshine.

Anna Elkins is a traveling poet and painter who has lived in the shadows of the Rockies and the Alps, and on the shores of the Caribbean and Micronesian seas.

Alison Konecki crusades for the arts by day, writes by night, and travels as often as possible.

Lance Garland is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and expedition leader for “Beyond the False Summit: A Matterhorn Expedition to Unearth the Queer Pioneers of Alpinism.” In the moments between fighting fires, climbing mountains, and sailing seas, he writes.

Lola Akinmade Åkerström is the 2023 Pathfinder Prize-winning expedition leader and cinematic art director for “In Tété’s Footsteps: A Cultural Expedition in Greenland.”

Henry Sharpe is a Canadian illustrator and paleontology student with a penchant for hiking in Crocs.

Daniel Hudon is a writer and educator based in Boston who likes to get lost in nature, particularly among old trees.

Jenna Scatena is an independent journalist based in Istanbul and San Francisco, whose work explores the intersection of place and culture.

Janna Brancolini is an American journalist based in Milan, Italy. She is drawn to stories where law meets politics, where the environment intersects with finance, where cultures clash, and where languages collide.

Alex Krowiak is a San Diego–based photojournalist and expedition guide working to tell stories of people, nature, and the changing relationship between the two.

As a writer and a writing instructor, Russell Frank’s mission in life is to foster appreciation of a keen observation, a well-turned phrase, and a correctly used apostrophe.

Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee is a wordmonger, conceptual artist, sharer of food, and professional accidentalist. You might catch a glimpse of her climbing a mountain, planting seeds, running in waves, baking cake, or staring at clouds — laughing all the while.

Diane Selkirk is a traveler who believes the best moments come when you toss away the bucket list and follow your own curiosity to adventure.

Richard Pallardy is a freelance science writer. He is endlessly fascinated by the behavior and evolution of living things. By writing about these subjects, he hopes to draw attention to their importance — and to the joy that this knowledge can bring to everyday life.

After leaving an art program to pursue psychology — and after nearly 20 years away from drawing — Maggie Scotilla took a pen and ink class in 2017 and rediscovered her passion for making art.

Molded and catalyzed by natural environments, Morgan Tilton is a creative writer and reporter fueled by snowfall, shooting stars, and Nuun hydration tablets. She specializes in outdoor industry news, adventure travel, and stories of human endurance.

Lottie Gross is an award-winning travel writer and editor from south Oxfordshire, England, who has traveled the world updating guidebooks in India and reporting on community projects in Uganda.

Colin Daileda is a journalist in Bengaluru, whose work has appeared in Atlas Obscura, Longreads, and others. His latest for Hidden Compass is part of a series on humanity’s evolving and often confrontational relationship with water, and is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Moriah Costa is a freelance journalist and editor by day and an artist by night.

Gemina Garland-Lewis is a Pacific Northwest and Baja CA Sur-based photographer, scientist, and explorer whose work explores human-animal-environment relationships around the globe. She is a lover of the outdoors, curiosity, and cheese.

Above all her accolades as a writer, activist, and teacher, Michele Bigley is most proud of her identity as a mother. Her two sons, Kai and Nikko, remind her every day that making the world a better place is the only work worth pursuing.

Jennifer Billock is an award-winning writer, best-selling author, and writing coach. She is currently dreaming of an around-the-world trip with her Boston terrier.

Edmée van Rijn, born and raised in the Netherlands, is an experienced freelance camerawoman, editor, and producer working across the Middle East and beyond.

Originally from Los Angeles, Cherene Sherrard is a poet, scholar, and essayist.

J.R. Patterson was born in Manitoba in 1989 and raised on a beef and grain farm on the Canadian prairies. His experiences as a farm laborer, factory worker, and musician inform much of his writing.

Lauren Napier finds solace in melody and the written word. She has penned a children’s book, All My Animals, and stories for NPR Berlin, amongst other texts and songs.

Megan Taylor Morrison is a best-selling author, semi-professional dancer, and certified business coach.

Olivier Guiberteau is a freelance journalist and photographer who covers travel, sports, culture, and adventure. Based in London, he has lived and worked in multiple countries around the world.

Scott Denholm is a contemporary ocean artist and surfer in Australia, painting and chasing scenes of distant coastlines and oceans.

Hidden Compass is an award-winning, women-led media company that’s forging an Alliance to turn storytellers and explorers into heroes and champion a new age of discovery. Learn more by clicking “about” in the navigation bar.

An associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of San Diego, Rachel Blaser enjoys exploring ways to make science more accessible and exciting to the public through imagery and storytelling.

Eric Dusenbery is a photographer and storyteller who doesn’t mind getting lost to find ordinary subjects that are otherwise overlooked.

Joshua Zukas is a Hanoi-based writer covering travel, architecture, culture, and innovation in Vietnam and, occasionally, beyond.

Meenakshi J is an India-based freelance writer who finds solace in wholesome vegetarian food, instrumental music, historical ruins, and ancient art.

Paul Fischer is an author, screenwriter, and filmmaker. Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in France, he now lives in the United Kingdom.

Rebecca spent the first half of her life writing for others; now she’s pursuing her own passions and strengthening her own voice. A freelancer based in Houston, Rebecca loves to discover new places and new people, then delve into the stories that make them so interesting.

Melinda Misuraca is a writer who likes having conversations in parked cars, taking naps in meadows, and drinking cold, bitter beers while shooting pool.

Russell Porcas is an old-school film photographer who was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age and now collects and restores old snapshots with his wife, Melinda, for their project “Paper Ghosts.”

Wesley Morgan is a military-affairs reporter who has covered the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2007. A native of the Boston area, he began embedding with combat units as a 19-year-old freelancer.

As a freelance photographer and writer, Ana Norman Bermúdez divides her time between the worlds of journalism and international development. She’s a passionate animal rights supporter, yet struggles to keep her houseplants alive.

Kang-Chun (KC) Cheng is an environmental photojournalist based in Nairobi, Kenya, reporting on land-use conflicts, the impact of climate change and technology on Indigenous communities, and China-Africa relations.

William Costa is a freelance journalist based in Asunción, Paraguay. His aim is to continue bringing underreported stories to international audiences through journalism that is thorough and respectful.

Emilie Filou is a freelance journalist specializing in the environment, business, sustainability and development issues, with a particular interest in Africa.

Anna Richards has been scribbling since she could hold a crayon. In 2021 she turned her hobby into a full-time job and relocated from the UK to Lyon, France. She was drawn by a love of the mountains, and the French language and culture (not to mention the wine and cheese).

Erik Jaråker is the Pathfinder Prize-winning videographer and drone pilot for “In Tété’s Footsteps: A Cultural Expedition in Greenland.”

Noo Saro-Wiwa is the Pathfinder Prize-winning visual storyteller and journalist for “In Tété’s Footsteps: A Cultural Expedition in Greenland.”

Sadek Hefni Shorbagi is a Pathfinder Prize finalist, researcher, and Arabic translator for “Pharaoh’s Hot Springs.”

Roxanne (“Roxy”) Fournier is a Pathfinder Prize expedition finalist, expedition leader, and researcher for “Pharaoh’s Hot Springs.”

Mathieu Bisnaire Poirier is a Pathfinder Prize finalist and researcher for “Pharaoh’s Hot Springs.”

Jane Ellen Stevens — a longtime health, science, and technology journalist — is the founder and publisher of PACEs Connection (PACEs = positive and adverse childhood experiences), which includes the news site ACEsTooHigh.com and the social network PACEsConnection.com.

Peace Kathure Mundia is a writer based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Emily writes words and makes films that explore subcultures and cultural paradoxes.

Tulsi Rauniyar is an independent journalist and documentary photographer based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She infuses new perspectives into her work around environmental and humanitarian issues — an intersection of worlds that needs critical thinking and heart.

Maud Rowell is a blind writer and film photographer from London with a background in Japanese studies. Her mission is to educate and inform others about the realities of sight loss.

Keith Salmon is a contemporary landscape artist whose paintings and soundscapes are based on his walks in the Scottish Highlands.

Megan Dohm is a writer and photographer based in North Carolina who enjoys tracking down 18th-century court documents.

Anna Polonyi is a writer and former reporter with a love for uncovering stories of unexpected courage in history.

Craig K. Collins is a San Diego-based writer and the author of Thunder in the Mountains (Lyons Press, 2014) and Midair (2016); he has a novel due out later this year.

Allison Torres Burtka is a freelance writer and editor who loves to write about the transformative power of sports and the outdoors.

Annie Davidson is a Melbourne-based freelance illustrator whose drawings feature meticulous patterns & details, atmospheric color palettes and whimsical subjects.

Emily Larsen is a designer and illustrator who lives and works in Salem, Massachusetts.

A specialist in coastal travel, the Northeastern U.S., animal conservation, food and craft beverages, and Spain, Robin Catalano is a travel journalist and the creator of the travel blog Once More to the Shore.

There’s a realm called “wonder,” where science and magic coexist. It’s where Irene Salter lives, and through her exquisite storytelling, she brings you along on the adventure.

Ellen is a multidisciplinary artist, PhD student, and, most importantly, a mother of two (cats): Raisin Bran and Apricot.

Rachel Wisniewski is an independent photojournalist and writer based in Philadelphia, PA.

Charlotte Austin is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and expedition guide specialist for “Beyond the False Summit: A Matterhorn Expedition to Unearth the Queer Pioneers of Alpinism.”

Ian Finch is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and expedition photographer for “Beyond the False Summit: A Matterhorn Expedition to Unearth the Queer Pioneers of Alpinism.”

Jordan Cannon is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and expedition climbing expert for “Beyond the False Summit: A Matterhorn Expedition to Unearth the Queer Pioneers of Alpinism.”

Dr. Tara Rajendran is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and producer for “The Music of Care.”

Gresham Cash is a 2024 Pathfinder Prize finalist and producer for “The Music of Care.”

When not peering through her magnifying glass at slime molds, Melissa Hart writes both fiction and non-fiction with a particular interest in history and Pacific Northwest nature.

Meet bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and acclaimed underwater photographer Pier Nirandara, Hidden Compass’s 2024 Storyteller in Residence.