Around the World

This volume marks five years of publication for Stranger’s Guide. Since that first guide, we’ve explored cities, countries and regions across five continents, developing close relationships with talented storytellers around the world and commissioning original reporting you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else. Meanwhile we’ve seen change come more rapidly and drastically than we ever envisioned, through wars and armed conflict, social movements and citizen uprisings, and a global pandemic. The world may be markedly different than it was in 2018, and yet our editorial mission has remained consistent—and relevant.

This 200-page double volume includes some of our favorite pieces from the last five years, organized thematically to examine how different communities relate to the same concepts. Throughout these pages, we hope that you find pieces that not only delight, but also challenge and engage. Whether focusing on Ireland, Tehran, Lagos or Colombia, the stories we publish seek to understand how culture, power and history shape the ways we work, the ways we socialize and the ways we build family. We do not universalize these narratives; instead we understand that across different continents, these experiences can rhyme. And whatever headlines we come across, we remember they involve real people, with their own complex, inconsistent and meaningful lives, who experience these incidents firsthand.