Onlykashmir.in News Desk
More than 4.3 lakh tourists have visited border areas along the Line of Control in north Kashmir during the first eight months of the year, marking a striking shift in the tourism profile of regions once largely associated with cross border firing and tight security restrictions.
Official figures from Bandipora, Kupwara and Uri show that destinations including Keran, Lolab, Machil, Teetwal, Tangdhar, Gurez, Tulail and Uri have collectively drawn more than 4.30 lakh visitors this year, a scale of footfall that would have been almost unthinkable in these areas within living memory. Kupwara has recorded the largest share of the movement, with around three lakh tourist visits, while Uri registered nearly 70,000 and Gurez around 60,000, figures that underline just how far interest in these border landscapes has spread beyond niche adventure travellers.
The growing tourist movement has opened a new economic avenue for communities living along the border, where tourism related activity has expanded through homestays, local transport services, food outlets and other visitor oriented small businesses. For families that once built their livelihoods around subsistence farming and livestock rearing under the constant shadow of shelling, the emergence of a functioning tourism economy represents a genuinely new source of income and opportunity.
The shift has followed a sustained period of relative calm along the Line of Control since the reaffirmation of the India Pakistan ceasefire in February 2021, which significantly reduced the frequency of cross border firing in these areas and gradually restored a sense of normalcy to villages that had spent years living under the threat of sudden violence.
For communities that endured that period, the growing arrival of visitors marks a profound change in how these border landscapes are being experienced, from spaces of fear and displacement to destinations actively marketed for their natural beauty. The emerging border tourism circuit is also widening the valley’s traditional tourist map well beyond established destinations such as Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonamarg, drawing remote settlements like Gurez and Tangdhar into greater economic and public attention than they have received in decades.
Local administrations in Bandipora, Kupwara and Baramulla, under which Uri falls, are reported to be examining further infrastructure support, including road connectivity and homestay registration, to help these areas absorb and sustain the rising visitor numbers without straining fragile local resources.
