I fell in love with Pakistan in 2003 as a backpacker, and went back in 2008 in the early days of a 4.5 year trip by car around Eurasia. Pakistan is by far my favourite country, I spent a year there in total in 2008 and 2009, stopped and lived in Hyderabad in the south and taught in a school, made life-long friends and so on. The southern province of Sindh is a real hidden gem with fascinating Sufi culture and some very laid-back and friendly people. Reports that this area is dangerous stem from the 1980s and are totally out of date.

For a traveller, Pakistan is really a fantastic country; the people are amazingly friendly and warm, the vast majority will do whatever they can to help you and look after you in their country. It's full of history, amazing landscapes and (unlike India) is unspoiled by tourism. There is real adventure to be had; in some places in the west it's pretty wild, though very few areas are really unsafe.

Pakistan is not without it's problems, but people love to exaggerate. Government travel advice is really aimed at expats living in an area rather than travellers passing through. There are certainly dangerous areas in Pakistan, roughly along the Afghan border north of Quetta up to around Dir. There have been occasional incidents on the Taftan - Quetta highway, but hundreds of Westerners in foreign looking vehicles, some with children, pass this route without incident each year. The really dangerou areas are well off your route (unless you are heading to Afghanistan, a great adventure) and you will be denied entry to them. For the most part (Sindh, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan), Pakistan is extremely safe.

One real problem are the escorts, which must be very frustrating. Either you have to figure a way to get away from them, or enjoy the limited areas in which you are escort free.

If you want a holiday, go and sit on a beach in the Maldives. If you want an adventure, head straight to Pakistan.

EO

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.