This year, we invited you to come along as we joined a hunt for the caiman in Bolivia. To attend with us the funeral of a neighbor in Tehran. To traipse at our side the streets of a Russian village drowning in sand. To dodge vicious sea gulls in Rome. To discover Melania Trump’s hometown in Slovenia. And to grieve over the loss of a beloved pet in Bangkok.

In the summer, The New York Times introduced a new feature, the Dispatch, whose goal is to make you feel as if you are right there beside our correspondents as they explore the world, sometimes to report stories to make you smile, sometimes to place you in the middle of a controversy, and sometimes to ask you not to look away from heart-wrenching scenes of tragedy.

The written word is an essential part of this endeavor, and our storytellers have transported you to to some of the world’s most interesting places, like Senegal, where the Baobab tree is beloved; the Solomon Islands, where we introduced you to the Seaweed King and his sinking empire, and Madagascar, where vanilla is as precious as silver.

But to fully immerse you in a place, of course, requires spectacular visuals, and our Dispatches are also created by some of our top photographers, videographers and graphic artists.