When 30-year-old trekking enthusiast, Hussain Iftikhar, packs his bags to travel up North, it is to "seek solace in the midst of all the clamour, and tranquillity in the cauldron of societal hysteria".

He works as a project manager at a tech company and heads to the Northern areas of Pakistan at least once a year with his friends to hit the ‘refresh button’. But, he is wary of using the Facebook check-in option to take his entire friend list along on a virtual tour.

"People tend to check-in everywhere these days," he chuckles. "X is at Skardu, Y is having coffee at Eagle’s Nest."

"I do take photographs of the landscape and even click the occasional selfie -- sharing it on Facebook and Instagram -- but among the group of friends that I travel with, I am not the designated photographer," says Iftikhar.

He agrees that social media does encourage travellers like him to explore new places and terrains. His ultimate aim is to go to the base camp at K-2, which he believes would merit a check-in provided that there is internet access at the location.

With increased internet penetration and social media access, there is a visible difference in the way people travel.

"Now they can actually think beyond Murree, Nathia Gali, and Naran," says Touristan CEO, Rana Ali. For about six years now, his travel agency has been taking students, families, and adventurers to tourist destinations all over Pakistan.

When a Pakistani student invited Claudia Fiedlaer, a 50-year-old German woman, to visit Pakistan, it was Touristan that took Fiedlaer to Hunza last month.

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"The people of Pakistan are very open and willing to show you the beauty of their country -- something that they are very proud of," says Fiedlaer.

Emerging out of a series of pleasantries (to the effect of ‘come visit!’, ‘you first!’) exchanged in a conversation on an online social platform, the trip was an overall rewarding experience in her opinion.

Ali goes on to explain that it is not just social media that is a game changer when it comes to travelling but globalisation in general.

"You see when students from Pakistan go to study abroad, they talk about home. They talk about the seasons, the landscapes, the food and culture. Often, they come back with foreign friends during vacations to show them around," he adds.

For him, the fact that the world has become compact is what is sparking travellers’ interest in exploring off-beat, unconventional travel destinations.

Sebastiaan Rijntjes and Alexandra Reynolds are "Lost with Purpose" - a couple in their 20s interested in travelling to unusual destinations in an attempt to foster human understanding and connection.

Their vlogs, photographs and posts on Facebook and Instagram include colourful highlights from their trips to Iran, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.

Rijntjes tells TNS how the duo ended up in Pakistan, "When we started planning for our trip, we only had a couple of countries in mind. One of these was Iran. We also wanted to travel over land as much as possible and Pakistan was one of the few options that made sense." The couple acquired a Pakistani visa just in case.

While on the road they began searching for information on Pakistan online. "And boy, was what we saw bad! We could hardly find any recent travel information on the country, and what we did find ranged from ‘don’t go’ to ‘don’t go, you’ll die’," he adds.

They met another travel blogger online, who had recently visited the Northern areas of Pakistan, and ‘had nothing but good stories’. Deciding on leaving if the country was really as bad as the media made out to be, they came to Pakistan.

Though the trip was an enjoyable experience, things did not always go as smoothly as they had hoped. "The most difficult thing about travelling in Pakistan, besides consuming a million litres of chai, is dealing with bureaucracy," Rijntjes remarks.

"There wasn’t much information available for foreign travellers, and we often got turned away from places because we needed some sort of "permission". When we asked where we could get permission, we often got told that nobody knew, but we needed it anyway. This is probably the most difficult, and annoying, aspect of travelling in Pakistan."

The confusion about these permits was absurd and frustrating for Rijntjes and Reynolds.

"One moment you needed an NOC for a certain area, the next moment you didn’t. At Checkpoint A people said you can move on, and at checkpoint B, 5 kilometres down, you are told to turn back."

Aftab Rana, president of Sustainable Tourism Foundation (STF) puts these hurdles faced by foreign tourists in context, "Accurate information is not available to tourists. It is pathetic that we still do not have a one-stop online solution in the form of an interactive web portal for tourism. Look at ‘Incredible India’ for reference."

When about 180 countries in the world are pitching to interested travellers who make plans sitting at home, it is all the more difficult to stand out without policies incorporating benefits drawn from information and communication technology.

Delving deeper into the subject, he talks about the Pakistan Tourism Development  Corporation’s (PTDC) inability to update its website to reflect the dynamism and increasing competitiveness in the tourism industry or publish even a single brochure in the last decade.

"The 18^th Amendment has rendered PTDC virtually toothless. With tourism becoming a provincial subject, each province is marketing its own brand; this becomes problematic when they fail to synergise and strengthen the ‘Pakistan brand’."

His reading is that perhaps attracting foreign tourists is not a priority for the government. In his opinion, the fear of losing face in case of a security crisis like the 2013 Nanga Parbat killings is quite possibly the reason behind a stricter visa regime now. This also explains the existence of what he terms as a ‘basic-level’ and ‘out of sync’ website of the tourism development corporation.

"We miss out on so much economic activity. India struggles with issues as grave as rape and murder of tourists but they understand that discouraging tourists from coming in will not get rid of prevailing law and order crises and societal ills," he elaborates.

But while the government fails to attract more tourists, travellers are sharing their travel stories with the world through pictures, Facebook groups, videos and blogs.