Some of you may know I love to travel and do an annual photo adventures to culturally interesting destinations.
Thankfully I have a hugely understanding wife who sees how enabling this wanderlust keeps me topped up for family life (and in exchange gets her own timeouts). I couldn’t be more grateful we have this setup.
Travel photography in Pakistan in 2026 truly lit me up and charged my creative batteries!
Recent trips have included jaunts to India (primarily focussed on beautiful Rajasthan), a train trip West to East through China and a flight hop North to South through Vietnam.
So when my good buddy (and outstanding wedding photographer) Hamish Irvine got in touch – with a British Airways companion voucher burning a hole in his pocket – and asked if I fancied a bromance adventure, we immediately got our thinking hats on!
Before long we set our sights on Pakistan – a destination with so few international visitors it doesn’t even have a dedicate Lonely Planet guide. But does it have fascinating history and bustling life on the streets? Is it a twist on India with mind-blowing food to savour? Are there hardly any tourists and a sprinkle of danger? Tick tick tick!
As Yorkshiremen obsessed with using air miles to hack cheap business class flights, Hamish locked down Business seats Heathrow > Islamabad and I used Virgin Air Miles home via Saudi in Upper Class, and then we started making plans. Before long, our pal and travel-loving wedding shooter Kristian Leven got wind of our plans and jumped aboard!
Then came the planning! It’s interesting plotting an adventure without guidebooks. ChatGPT was a helpful jumping off point, then I spoke with Pakistani neighbours and friends of friends on the ground in Pakistan, and destinations and plans came into focus. A country still ‘off the beaten track’ I Googled ‘is Pakistan dangerous to travel around in 2026?’ and everyone I spoke to said “I guarantee you will find Pakistan the most hospitable country in the world”.
Is Pakistan dangerous to travel in in 2026? No way, it genuinely was the most welcoming place I’ve ever travelled!
There are always dangers, particularly travelling in third world countries. This was marked as soon as we booked flights, by a terrorist bombing North of Islamabad. Parents were spooked and we made a pact that we’d pull the plug if needs be.
That plug was tested literally the week before flying there, when an Islamic State suicide bomber hit a Shia mosque killing 32 during Friday prayers near Islamabad. The fact that a radicalised muslim hit a mosque beggared belief, but ‘our man in Karachi’ gave us our first taste of ‘Inshallah’ culture (“if God wills”): He said “it’s unfortunate for sure, but in all likelihood won’t affect your trip, Inshallah. You won’t regret going.”
People there appear to live with the idea that a minuscule minority of radicals may disrupt life in terrifying ways, but life goes on without it affecting their day to day (Inshallah).
Sadly though, a prejudiced Global media portrayal of this and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) warnings for Pakistan that dictate where you shouldn’t / genuinely can’t go, do make the country a bit of a minefield to visit. And that’s before you embark on the new hassle of trying to arrange a visa.
But what this does mean, with so few tourists on the ground, is the welcome you receive for having made the effort to overcome these obstacles is just BONKERS!
I mean MINDBLOWING
A motorcyclist would see us in a tuk tuk, ask where we’re from at the lights, then pay our driver for the journey and say “Welcome of Pakistan, you are our guest!”. Street food wallahs either wouldn’t accept our money for their delicious grub, or another patron would pay for it. Locals would buy us chai / soft drinks (even while they were fasting for Ramadan!). Strangers wanted to pay for our meals, and literally everyone wanted a shake our hands and chat about what we were doing here and why.
It was pretty overwhelming (but as a frugal Yorkshireman, I could get used to it!). Each and every day, someone made us feel even more welcome. And I didn’t feel unsafe once.
The three of us universally feel so grateful we surmounted fears to visit this vibrant and welcoming country!
We were there for 12 fascinating days, starting in Rawalpindi (near Islamabad), then driving via Mirpur (and Rohtas Fort) to Lahore, before flying down to Karachi on the South Coast and home via Lahore.
So instead of waffle on, let’s get into my fave pics from the fist half of the trip (as there are too many for one post!):
Once we’d landed and found our feet in the vibrant market town of Rawalpindi, the sister city to Islamabad (which by comparison is a bit of a sedate 1960’s new town), K-man, Hamish and I decided a good place to start was Rawalpindi station.
I always enjoy the bustle of station life! People coming and going, windows and doors like temporal portals of life on the move.
Smells and colours. Someone always looking. It’s a feat in itself to capture a busy scene without eye contact or thumbs up.
We shared behind the scenes pics, and this one Hamish snapped shows what it’s like every 3 minutes being asked for ‘selfie?’
It was like being a celebrity!
The morning we arrived Hamish and I went looking for an ATM and heard drumming and found a parade of men carrying a model of a mosque through the streets, throwing money.
Hamish hadn’t brought his camera and got some crazy FOMO. Top Tip: Always take the camera.
Just like in my wedding work, I’m always on the lookout for a photo with a bit of comedy; humanising a subject. Like a flower girl picking her nose.
The way this mobile handbag seller strung bags round his neck made me smile!
..as did this (and the country’s general) complete disregard for parking rules.
New lens alert! Is the Tamron 35-150mm the best all-in-one travel lens ever?
Shutterbug sidebar! For those interested in what equipment I take on these adventures I generally carry one camera body (my Sony A9 series), 3 prime lenses (Sigma Art 35mm f1.4 / 50mm f1.4 and a Sony 85mm f1.8) plus a zoom (Sony 24-105mm f4 – for that bit wider range / longer reach). This ends up being 2.5kg of glass, plus camera, plus batteries, plus LOTS of lens changing.
Recently I’ve been interested in this Tamron 35-150mm f2>2.8 as replacement for all these and as a wedding lens! Surely A SINGLE LENS couldn’t replace all these? Well I thought I’d take a punt and road test it in Pakistan!
As a predominatly f2 shooter anyway, this Tamron lens offers the vibes of a prime lens (shooting around f2 aft 35 and 50mm) but with the versatility of a 70-200 f2.8 zoom.
And my quick summary of it in action was WOW! What a beast! I love the depth of field isolation, speed of focus and ability to cover all the vibes of the lenses I’d usually have taken. Even in low light!
The only downside was the weight (which does feel heavy on the arm at 1.2kg), but this took 1.3kg off my shoulders!
I suppose the proof is in the pudding though, so have a look through and see if you like how it captured everything…
See how it’s able to sharply isolate the subject in the depth of field while throwing out the chaps in the background?
With over 250 million people at the last census, Pakistan is a country of people filled frames within frames, with plenty of aging texture to boot.
I just love warm, highly-populated counties where people live outside instead of behind closed doors, and down every alley is an interesting new space.
We spent a lot of this trip visiting markets. Starting with the Sunday Market at Itwar Bazar. You could get everything from a live chicken for tea, to mamoth rugs, to hunks of Himalayan rock salt.
This was the footware row
And these cheeky little entrepreneurs sold the bags and fetched chai!
In the middle was food! Delicious hot samosa chaat, and asking what it was, I was given a free portion, and sat with some students keen to chat themselves.
I usually do these trips on my tod, but it was great to have some buddies there to bounce off and compare our winnings at the end of day (over smuggled in, contraband whisky!)
During the day we generally just share our live locations in a WhatsApp group and set off at random on the hunt, crossing paths at random until we all felt the call for chai.
Sometimes I’d end up wandering down a street to find Hamish eating lunch with a group of randoms!
Like I say, the welcome here is immense.
While we had been initially concerned about heading into central Islamabad following the bombing, it felt so safe on the ground, we decided we shouldn’t miss the impressive Faisal Mosque!
Currently the sixth largest Mosque in the world (the largest when built), it was inspired by the shape of a traditional Bedouin desert tent. The 260ft high minarets certainly make you feel small.
Love this one, in the giant basement washing area. The pre-prayer cleaning rituals are so interesting.
As are the prayers.
We headed to Pakistan in the build up to Ramadan, which had interesting consequences for our photos…
On the way back from the Faisal Mosque, we saw a field full of activity and goats, so we asked our driver to stop for us to explore.
A bit of poking around and conversing over google translate revealed that this was where the men of the house came to get their full Ramzan goat! Fresh off the hillside.
A bit brutal to watch, I watched them making their selection, being the one to cut the throat, then having it stripped and butchered right there.
You’re not in Tescos now Dorothy, I thought to myself!
I like how kids the world around will reject education for games!
Before leaving the Islamabad area, we visited in Rawalpindi’s Raja Bazar, one of Pakistan’s largest sprawling markets. It was such a fab place to meet people and capture the streetlife.
I like thow this one shows K-Man & Hamish too
After asking the chap in the background what he was serving, he made me a free plate of delicious breakfast Karahi and fried bread and sat me inside.
Moments later, a bunch of kids on the way to school popped in for their breaky.
Round the corner we found their school too!
Here’s a snap Hamish caught of me enjoying a raging hot Karak Chai after a good explore.
That afternoon we headed to Mirpur, stopping for sunset at the epic Mangla Dam – one of the world’s largest earth-fill dams (so-named after the nearby village of Mangla that it swallowed up).
I like that you can just about make out the boy playing with his kite.
(The joke here is that half of the Mirpiuri people are in England! A lot of British Pakistani’s came from this region, and we even spotted fish & chip shops in Mirpur town!)
It was great to have a driver from Islamabad to Lahore, as we could stop in at both epic and interesting spots rather than trundle past on a train.
One of the highlights was visiting the 16th-century UNESCO listed Rohtas Fort – one of the largest and most formidable forts in all of Punjab from the period of the Mughal emperors.
I’m a sucker for these silk route fort towns, and have visited loads throughout Rajasthan.
The amazing thing about this one was that it was almost entirely deserted! Not a tourist in site…
Well apart from Hamish on the top of this incredible 100ft high ‘baori’ stepwell!
The mind boggles at these incredible structures, digging almost 150 steps down into the limestone bedrock to the water level, designed to provide water for soldiers, horses and even elephants!
Love this little pic of me (caught again by the Hamster) running up the steps.
On the way to the fort, we saw a smoking brickworks, so on the way back decided to stop again and pop in for a look. An army of workers were there slapping clay into brick moulds, drying them in the sun, then moving them into an ever revolving kiln to fire, remove and restock.
It was great to photograph the girls at work, as we had already run into cultural issues photographing women in a lot of Pakistan.
We met an discussed the issue with many women (and men) across the adventure, and in short avoided doing much without express permission.
Our appearance must have made a random addition to their day!
Before heading off, I wandered round to the living quarters, and met these fascinating faces.
Some of the eyes in Pakistan were just so mesmerising. Green and blue eyes are not uncommon.
One of my fave ever travel photographers is Steve McCurry, the Magnum/NatGeo photojournalist whose Asia photos (and of the infamous green eyed Afghan Girl) continue to inspire me.
This pic of a sleeping man surrounded by washing and animals somehow conjure his work to me.
As we drew in on Lahore, we decided to find a tiny village Kristian had seen mentioned in the appendices of a travel photography book…
It took us a while to find, across a few chassis scraping makeshift bridges, and what we found was loads of fun.
Wandering in, we initially found interesting faces and village life…
But before long, kids appeared out of every doorway, and we were swamped.
It became an amusing cross between being the pied piper of Hamlin and the Beatles!
What a wonderful warm welcome to this fascinating, friendly country! The global perception of this place couldn’t be further from the truth.
And the best was still to come…
Stay tuned for the next part; with ancient Lahore’s walled city warren and massive Mughal mosques. Then Karachi’s goat markets and camel-covered beaches!
Thanks for reading folks! (Thanks for the company and pics Hamish & Kristian!)
Barnaby
