In May 2024, Margaritta, a 33-year-old German travel influencer, traveled alone through Afghanistan for three months. I wasn’t afraid, she remarked, in spite of the media’s repeated assertion that Afghanistan wasn’t safe.
For security reasons, Margaritta requested that only her first name be used, but she told NBC News that she felt great. I received royal treatment.
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She added in a post on her TikTok channel, @margarittasworld, which has more than 18,000 subscribers, that the trip was one of those incredible experiences that also challenged me.
A small number of travel influencers, like Margaritta, have visited Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control in 2021 after the catastrophic withdrawal of American-led forces.
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In internet films, they explore the nation’s rugged, landlocked landscape and tribal culture, challenging stereotypes that the nation is dangerous and inhospitable to women. Although these meticulously edited travelogues are exciting for the influencers and their fans, others claim they are rehabilitating the despotic rulers of Afghanistan and obscuring the terrible realities of life there, especially for women.
The rise of foreign influence in Afghanistan is extremely alarming, according to internationally recognized Afghan activist and researcher Orzala Nemat, who is presently a visiting fellow at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
In contrast, Orzala said NBC News, “what we’re seeing is a curated, sanitized version of the country that conveniently erases the brutal realities faced by Afghan women under Taliban rule.”
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Afghan women have been essentially excluded by the Taliban from a variety of facets of public life, including as employment and education. The Taliban rejected the International Criminal Court’s July arrest warrants for two of its top officials, which accused them of persecuting women and children in Afghanistan.
Despite the U.S. State Department’s explicit warnings that Americans should not travel to Afghanistan for any reason and that there is a possibility of U.S. nationals being wrongfully detained, influencers still go there.
Similar travel recommendations have been issued by the UK and the EU, and neither nation has an active embassy in Afghanistan, which restricts the ability to offer consular aid to its people.
Although she acknowledged that the Taliban had placed severe restrictions on women, Margaritta claimed she saw these regulations as evidence that women are valuable and cherished.
Zoe Stephens, a 31-year-old British tour guide and travel vlogger from Liverpool, England, who has been to Afghanistan three times, agreed with her remarks.
She told NBC News that all we see of Afghan women are the shapes hidden under their burqas. But there’s a lot more subtlety to it, I discovered when I arrived.
She stated that because it’s so private, a lot of the time she spent with some Afghan women behind closed doors was not captured on camera or captured on camera.
With more than 70,000 followers on her Instagram accounts, @zoediscovers and @zoediscoversnk, Stephens frequently posts her adventures in Afghanistan and North Korea, the other country that her tour agency Koryo Tours covers.
Similar to Margaritta, Stephens stated that she observed Afghan women’s strength during her stay there: they don’t merely need to display it.
In one of her photographs, Stephens is shown holding a selfie stick on a tour bus as it speeds over untamed terrain while wearing a headscarf and an abaya, a traditional robe. As she explores lakes, mosques, and mountain trails, the movie cuts to her joking with Afghan women from the area.
It may surprise you to learn that traveling to Afghanistan as a woman is frequently safer than traveling as a guy, according to her caption. Why? In Afghanistan, it is more important to be aware of what the government cannot control than of what it can.
However, Stephens goes on to provide some safety advice for women, which includes dressing modestly, projecting modesty, staying away from busy areas, and not sharing one’s whereabouts in real time.
Orzala, of RUSI, said that while influencers with Western passports roam freely, pose for photos and gain online fame, those privileges are denied to Afghan women,who are barred from schools, jobs or even walking freely in publicwithout being accompanied by male guardians.
Additionally, she said, there are moral and ethical quandaries because tourism profits run the risk of monetarily supporting and subtly legitimizing a system that has institutionalized gender apartheid.
“This should never be confused with contentment or consent to the current reality,” Orzala said of influencer videos with Afghan women grinning in the background.
She went on to say that this is neocolonial tourism masquerading as adventure rather than cultural exchange.
As the war-torn nation attempts to restore its reputation under stringent Taliban-run Islamic laws and practices, the number of visitors to Afghanistan is still in the low thousands. According to an Associated Press article, about 3,000 foreign visitors came in the first three months of this year, compared to roughly 9,000 in 2024.
In an effort to draw in more tourists, some travel agencies are working with travel influencers to produce stunning videos that Taliban accounts have since reposted on social media.
One outlandish 50-second video made by vloggerYosaf Aryubibegins with an eerie scene of three people with bags over their heads, presumed to be held hostage by the men standing behind them, who are dressed like the Taliban with rifles slung over their shoulders.
Before removing the bag from one of the hostages, one of the armed guys says, “We have one message for America.” A smiling tourist then gives a thumbs-up and exclaims, “Welcome to Afghanistan!”
The next scene shows male vacationers going past waterfalls, diving into picturesque lakes, and even brandishing what turn out to be fake M4 guns.
That is not how all influencers view Afghanistan. YouTuber Nolan Saumure, whose Seal on Tour channel has 650,000 subscribers, admits in another video that he exclusively spoke to men while he was there.
In a 35-minute video titled Afghanistan Has Too Much Testosterone, Saumure spins the camera around to show a large crowd of Afghan men swarming him.
It s a complete sausage fest in here, he says.
Contributions were made by Jay Ganglani and Caroline Radnofsky.
