Solo female travel in Pakistan

I have guided women travelling alone in this country for seven years. Almost all of them arrive braced for something difficult, and almost all of them leave planning the next trip. That is not a marketing line — it is the pattern, and it is worth explaining why.

What is actually different

You will be looked at. Not usually in a threatening way — foreign women are unusual outside the main cities and people are curious — but constantly, and it is tiring in a way that is hard to describe until you have felt it.

You will be asked, repeatedly, whether you are married and where your husband is. It is a friendly question here, not an interrogation. Most travellers settle on an answer they are comfortable repeating twenty times a day.

You will also be looked after, sometimes overwhelmingly. In the north especially, a woman travelling alone is treated as a guest of the whole village.

What to wear

Not a rule, but genuinely useful: loose trousers and a long tunic, with a scarf you can put over your head at shrines and mosques. A shalwar kameez is comfortable, cheap to buy here, and means people stop noticing you almost immediately — which is the actual goal.

In Hunza you will see local women in a much wider range of dress than in Punjab. In Lahore and Karachi, a long shirt over jeans is unremarkable.

What we do

• A female guide, if you want one. Say so when you book and we will arrange it rather than telling you it is not possible
• Accommodation we have checked. Not "3-star" — actually stayed in, with a working lock, a room away from the ground floor, and staff we know
• A named woman in the office who you can call or message at any hour, and who will answer
• No shared-room arrangements unless you have asked for them
• Airport pickups by a driver we name in advance, with the vehicle registration sent to you beforehand

The honest parts

Public transport alone at night is a bad idea and I would say the same about most countries. Some hotels in smaller towns will be uncomfortable about a woman checking in alone, which is why we book ahead in your name rather than letting you discover it at the desk. And in crowded bazaars in the big cities, the same low-level harassment you would get in a dozen other countries happens here too.

None of that is a reason not to come. It is a reason to have someone competent on the ground, which is the whole business we are in.

What women tell us afterwards

The thing that comes up most is not the mountains. It is the number of times somebody refused payment for tea.