‘A Unique Place’: Foreigners Visit Post-War Afghanistan

His soldier son toured Afghanistan with insurgents in his crosshairs, but American traveller Oscar Wells has a different objective — sightseeing promoted by the interim Taliban government’s fledgling tourism sector. “It is a unique place, it touches my heart,” the 65-year-old Indiana farmer told AFP, praising “its magnificent mountains” with “people living in the old way”. Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, Wells is among a small but rising number of travellers coming to Afghanistan since the war’s end. Decades of conflict made tourism extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure. They holiday under the austere control of Taliban authorities, without consular support after most embassies were evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021. They must register with officials on arrival in each province, comply with a strict dress code and submit to searches at checkpoints manned by men armed with Kalashnikovs.