Become a Backroad Explorer
You’re invited to join our Backroad Explorer community—an exclusive group of readers who receive our quarterly print issue, which publishes at the turn of each season, and who also have the opportunity to contribute stories and photos to future print issues of Backroad Portfolio. (More about that below!)
As a member of this community, you also gain exclusive access to stories no longer accessible to our free or upgraded digital subscribers, as well as bonus content reserved just for you.
Content Contribution
Our Explorers are Backroad Portfolio pioneers. They share stories and photos of new destinations, landscapes, secrets, mysteries, historical sites, and more. Then, we share them with our readers. No other subscribers have this opportunity or access to our readers.1
Click HERE for an example of a story from two of our Explorers.
Why are we doing this? Because the best backroad stories come from our readers, and we can’t wait to share them with our readers. If you live outside of the southeastern United States, no problem. Our readers live across the Southeast and beyond, and would love to learn about new backroad destinations they have yet to explore.
Unlock Exclusive Posts
As an Explorer, you’ll be given immediate access to these stories:
How a Mule Kick Killed 8 People
The Camelback Bridge
The Beauty of a Dry Dirt Road
Capture the Golden Hours
White Mountain Cake With Boiled Icing
The Mountains are Calling
Meet Chuck Leavell and His Wife Rose Lane
The Great Wagon Road
General Stores of the Southeast
The Air Up There
A Longing for Fire and Sunlight
Poinsett Bridge
The Art of Wintering
The View From a Horse
Here’s a sneak peek at photos from some of the stories we link to above, or that have appeared in previous issues of Backroad Portfolio.2















Thanks for considering joining our Explorer community, and remember to always … Take the long way home.
Story submissions are subject to editing, and photo selections are made by our art director.
Photos above, from left to right, were taken by or are courtesy of Tom Poland, Elizabeth Poland Shugg, Tom Poland, Robert Clark, The Old Mill, Explore Brevard, Tom Poland, Erica de Flamand, Jennifer Linney, Taylor Egerton, Tom Poland, Erica de Flamand, Robert Clark, Grace Franklin, and Bruce de Boer.