Introduction

The Himalayan region—encompassing contemporary Nepal, northern India, Tibet and Bhutan—has captivated Western imaginaries in the modern era. Early travel accounts by Christian missionaries, colonial explorers and mountaineers and later popular books and films such as Lost Horizon helped to create and perpetuate an aura of enchantment, authenticity and utopia that continues in the present. By the late twentieth century and into the early twenty-first, expanded opportunities for travel and mobile lifestyles and enthusiasm for Eastern spirituality and high adventure have brought ever-increasing numbers of global travellers to the Himalayas. Observing that travel in the region has and continues to be represented and performed in ways that resemble pilgrimage, this book explores the overlappings with tourism and mobile life more generally.