Local Travel Bloggers in Pakistan on Instagram, YouTube
Quite frankly, there are zero fulltime travel bloggers in Pakistan on the Internet, but maybe a few on Instagram and YouTube, that write about their adventures regularly and full time.
You’d get plenty of on and off writers, hobby writers, and one-trip writers, would be social media influencers and the rich kids that do Pakistan sometimes, but not travel writing.
What we do have is page after pages of travel blog on Pakistan written by foreign tourists that come over for a few days and write fifteen blogs one after the other to boost their Google rankings. Their research is limited to what they can understand from the internet and their restricted travel route. Still, it is a good place to start if you are thinking of traveling across Pakistan.
The real beautiful waterfalls, forts, history, heritage sites, caves, and mountain peaks are not advertised by local tour groups as they are not lucrative enough. This is where the local travel blogger in Pakistan comes in handy. In-depth Information on wonderful tourist locations is very handy otherwise you might skip the best parts in your itinerary.
So, how can you get authentic information on the internet about the hidden places that only locals know in Pakistan?
You ask these 5 travel-related enthusiasts in Pakistan about how to find the real gems here
No 1 are the female social media microbloggers on travel
Pakistani women travel enthusiasts on social media like, Instagram and Facebook, are making a killing online. One enthusiast said, “I just posted a video of me smiling and I got tens of thousands of hits overnight”. Welcome to Pakistani’s gender-segregated society.
The pretty girl influencer that does occasional travel posts, on Instagram is a hugely untapped area for Pakistani travel professionals, but maybe not that informed on travel itself.
We have Komal of the @unseenvoyage, with plenty of Ho pictures and a YouTube channel, but little substance on travel to help people. Anam Hakeem, the notorious @Girlwithgreenpassport girl does all the places in the world except Pakistan. And guess what, she has 30,000 followers on Instagram, mostly because of her pouty lips, I suppose. Her YouTube Channel is doing pretty well too. She even got a mention on several international news channels, and they say Pakistani ladies are oppressed. I would like to be oppressed, travel the world, and make money looking pretty anytime.
Prettier lady travel influencers of Pakistan are @patangir, @farheenqureshi, @humatariq, and @Ferozagulzar; just don’t expect anything substantial from them if you are traveling inside Pakistan and are a lady yourself, but you can ask them for basic information.
Influencers are just that, so you’d have to move on elsewhere to get your answers on your Pakistan trip.
No 2 are casual female influencers masquerading as travel bloggers
These ladies have gotten huge success since the Pakistani media is itching to promote women that place one step out of their houses. As the media has labeled them as “female travel bloggers”, they need to have a blog now. Wala! Blogs up and running on obscure host providers, with a few posts only.
These ladies are @Mahvishahmad with her blog meraysafarnamay.blogspot.com and @Areeshakhan with littlekhanswonderlust.com.
Just to name a few lady travel microbloggers in Pakistan, @Gul Jabeen on Instagram. At least she tried to write something on her blog.
No. 3 The relatively serious travel bloggers in Pakistan
These ladies write quite regularly on travel and tours in Pakistan and their writings can be helpful for people that want to use someone else’s wisdom, before experiencing trouble. But do they get mentioned in the Pakistani news media or the blogosphere? NO! This might be because they average looking – not Instagram material.
@Urooj Hussain is an exception. She has traveled a little inside Pakistan has the passion to write great reviews about traveling inside Pakistan. She definitely can be consulted by shooting in a DM, to get some information on Pakistan for women travelers.
Rahma Khan, an engineer with a traveling spirit writes about here escapades and could be a good source of information for female travelers to Pakistan. The good thing is that she is based in Oman and can better tell you the visa procedures at the time of travel.
Saba Ghani also posts regularly on her blog page that is a part of a travel and tour operator in Pakistan. Her blogs are worth reading and pretty elaborate.
This travel car rental service has its own blog page that is quite impressive. The poor anonymous writer, probably on their payroll, has quite a good understanding of the travel intricacies inside Pakistan.
This travel blog forum gets posts from local travel bloggers and some of their topics are very useful and cannot be covered by foreign bloggers that only come for a limited time.
Now, this is a genuine travel blogger, blog.travel-culture.com, as expected, is an anonymous recluse. Just looking at the enormous work that has been put in to create a diverse mosaic of the travel landscape of Pakistan is pretty impressive. Also, this travel blogger has been posted regularly on the travel of Pakistan related topics forever. I am sure if someone approaches this travel blogger through their contact portal, they would definitely help.
The good thing is that travel-culture Company does its own tours across Sindh too. This is probably the only genuine travel blog that I have come across in Pakistan.
You can also get a lot of travel information about Pakistan through the trip advisor.com website, as Pakistani travelers don’t like to edit and curate their content. They just paste whatever comes to mind here and that helps a lot in critical tours of the country, as travel times, unforeseen problems, rent, etc.
It makes sense for bloggers to write on someone else’s site, this reduced the cost overheads and they probably get subsidized or even free trips that are already scheduled.
No 4 the Pakistani artist travelers and Vloggers
These guys are more into the aesthetics of traveling, as the right picture angle, the theme of their website instead of hardcore trudging across Pakistani landscape but do they have the necessary experience to guide someone else? I doubt it.
I must admit Assam has done a wonderful job of creating a perfect tourist map for Travelers to Pakistan. Pakistani young travel YouTubers and VLOGgers are making a killing in the video department, but are short of substance and experience as genuine travelers that can guide others. Still, they can be messaged to clarify any query that a first-time visitor to Pakistan may have here; Abdul, @Ukhano, etc.
No 5 the western returned Pakistanis running businesses
This category of Pakistanis loves to grab all the trickle of western tourists that do dare to land in Pakistan, by leveraging their western education and upbringing. So, they get all the big profits as well.
MadHatter.com is a female-run travel and tour website in Pakistan that has no travel blogs at all but has a brand following by western tourists. The owner, a lady, get space in western media outlets as well. Her lady-card is a super hit in Pakistan.
Hunzaonfoot.com is another UK returned Pakistani that acts as a go-between Pakistan and UK travelers. He may have good tours and trips of the lucrative Northern Areas of Pakistan, but no blog to tell people what to expect.
No 6 Pakistani news websites with a travel page
Good luck with finding someone to explain to you the finer aspects of your planned trip to Pakistan from a blog like that. These articles are usually sublet and are written by Freelance writers, they can hardly be traced once they get paid.
Propakistani.pk is a wonderful website on Pakistan, but travel to Pakistan gets a lonely page built by contributors.
If your Pakistani tour operator says that your destination in Pakistan is safe and secure even if you’re a lady, believe him. Pakistanis are very hospitable people and would not hurt a guest, whom they believe to e a gift of god.
Looking at this disappointing travel blogging landscape in Pakistan, I can safely say, www.how2havefun.com, that is yours truly, is the only genuine travel blogger in the country.
Conclusion
So, if you want to travel to Pakistan, even if you are a woman, the first thing you do is to read all the information on Pakistan on these travel blogs of foreigners. Then you book your tour with any of these renowned travel and tour companies of Pakistan. If you still have questions or need clarifications from Pakistani travel enthusiast or a blogger website, drop in a line at www.how2havefun.com, I’ll find you the answer.
Detractors like this French travel photographer’ blog are just there to pick snot
If I have missed any local travel and tour blog of Pakistan, do comment and tell me.
Nice put up. I truly like your content. It’s inspiring and I absolutely like it.
That was an informatic post
Dear Madam, dear Sir,
Many thanks for your interest. I am Bernard Grua, the “French travel photographer” (https://medium.com/@BernardGrua/can-we-believe-what-travelers-say-about-pakistan-are-they-accurate-fair-and-independent-8c294d54c07c) you mention in your documented paper. With less local knowledge than you about Pakistani blogs, I did my own researches. I am favorably surprised by the fact we have many identical conclusions. Though, I presented some other Pakistani vloggers than you.
“…The four, five in fact, Pakistani vloggers who stand out, with the exception of the Scooty Girls, do not really enter the field of travel. However, they deserve interest. Mubashir Siddique also makes videos on gastronomy. He is interested in the one of the countryside. He speaks Urdu as well as the following two. Faisal Warraich puts history subjects online. Like Siddique, he exceeds one million subscribers. The very young Zain Ul Abadin recounts the life of his village with great audience success. This is a testimony that will certainly gain value in the coming decades. In a general classification, he would come just behind the media Rosie Gabrielle. As for the Scooty Girls, they may interest young Pakistani girls who dream of escape, but their distribution is much more confidential…”
After posting, I learned about “The Mad Hatters”, that I added to my paper.
I also posted 12 more articles, on Medium, about Pakistan. “High Asia, stories of the Karakoram.” (https://medium.com/@BernardGrua/high-asia-stories-of-the-karakoram-f6310f3dac34) Some have been published on Pakistani media. They have been all praised by Pakistani people. Then, I am a bit surprised by your opinion saying I would be a “detractor” of Pakistan. There is probably a misunderstanding we should clear together. I suggest you read the detail answer I wrote for Zark Masood. “Further discussion about how travel media present Pakistan” (https://medium.com/@BernardGrua/futher-discussion-about-how-travel-media-present-pakistan-e3ee29ded4e0) If some topics are not addressed there, I would be delighted to answer you.
You and I admit foreign vloggers, at least most of the famous ones, don’t bring any useful and reliable material. By the way, what can we learn from one or two minutes video with show-off and personal promotion? I notice, in your next article about foreign vloggers, that you have the same opinion than me about the beautiful Eva Zu Beck, as far as travel information is concerned. That’s why I did an extensive use of Alex Reynolds website, “Lost With Purpose” for my travel in Pakistan. I was, subsequently, impressed by the “courage” she showed in her public video “Why travel media is dangerous for Pakistan’s tourism” (https://youtu.be/iudspL1wM_Q) before I read that part of the censure she was denouncing was not in accordance with the actual facts . I learned that this bad buzz did not “damage [her] business” but made her blog viral.
Since, this lady took terrible defamatory unsupported positions against Chapursan Valley people. I came to the defense of the local community here, Pakistan: Are Alex Reynolds & her travel blog « Lost With Purpose », fact based or reliable? (https://bernardgrua.net/2020/06/21/pakistan-are-alex-reynolds-and-her-travel-blog-lost-with-purpose-fact-based-or-reliable/),
I offer you, once again, to talk about this. English is not my current language. I could amend my text, if you consider another wording would be better. Meanwhile, I add, in my paper, your two articles.
Sincerely yours,
Bernard Grua, Nantes, France
Good Day Mr Grua,
Thankyou for your detailed response to my post.
I definitely will look into the VLOGers in Pakistan that you have mentioned. I don’t think they do much travel work, but worth following, i guess.
There is a lot more to see in Pakistan beside the Chapursan Valley and the North – which i guess you will once the travel restrictions end.
I found that your writing is very different and in-depth as compared to the other “hit and run” foreign bloggers coming to Pakistan.
I will go over your posts on Pakistan and give you a detailed response soon.
Regards
Wali
Many thanks, Wali, for your kind answer.
I am glad you made me aware of your two articles. I would be glad to learn more from you.
Kind regards
Bernard