1Research undertaken in social science at the end of the last century on recreational and tourist activities, to examine these activities from the angle of the experience sought and lived by tourists (Decroly, 2015), has led to a particularly acute interest in what their narratives and the productions (photographs, collected souvenirs) that accompany them say, not only about their relationship to the frequented spaces but also about themselves, their expectations, their practices, their emotions and the representations they develop. To borrow the terms of Kevin Meethan (2006: 4–10), these studies have often attempted to understand the multiple interactions that are woven into the tourist experience, between ‘narratives of place’ and ‘narratives of self’, not least because what is played out in these recreational activities offers everyone opportunities to act, more or less consciously, upon certain aspects of their own image and social identity. Situated outside the spheres of daily and professional life, these activities open up time-spaces allowing tourists to self-stage and ‘narrate identity’ (Elsrud 2011) for themselves and for others through a variety of oral, written or pictorial narrative forms. As shown by Torun Elsrud with regard to ‘backpackers’, this narrative dimension works even better when the activity or journey appears to be off the beaten track, seemingly involving an element of adventure, and presupposes a form of personal involvement on the part of the traveller – who, in so doing, considers that they are setting themselves apart from the banal figure of the tourist. The more or less structured narrative that they construct, within their own socio-cultural framework and codes, articulates the irreducible singularity of their experience, their desire to give it meaning, and to use it as a resource to the advantage of their social identity.
- 1 In the case of France, a recent survey carried out on behalf of the Fédération française de (...)
2Among the leisure activities that encourage this multiform interaction between meeting the world and others, and taking a closer look at oneself, hiking occupies a privileged place, whenever it goes beyond the stage of a short stroll along an already familiar track. Richard Ladwein’s work on trekking (2005: 10) emphasises the notion of ‘break from the ordinary’: for hikers, ‘the trekking experience marked a discontinuity in the flow of people’s daily lives. This was something they sought’. ‘This discontinuity materialised in reference to people’s selves’, which leads to consider ‘trekking as a way of creating self-narrative’ (Ladwein 2005: 13), viewed, in reference to Paul Ricoeur’s narrative identity (1990), as ‘the culmination of the definitive incorporation of the experience into the individual’s identity’, offering at the same time ‘the possibility of a social diffusion of the experience, in a normalised and recurrent framework, irrespective of the surrounding cultures – to wit, the narrative’ (Ladwein, 2005: 16). Particularly apparent in the case of trekking, the same mechanism also works for more modest achievements: from day hikes to long-distance itineraries and trekking tours, everyone appreciates the characteristics of their project – interest, physical effort, involvement, risk – according to their own desires and abilities, and the exchanges they have with their partners or with other walkers they meet along the way (Dérioz and Bachimon 2008). Whatever their experience, walkers have a strong propensity to tell their stories and share their experiences (opinions, photos, itineraries), and it is fairly easy for social scientists to collect raw material both through interviews and online browsing (dedicated association websites, individual blogs etc). The main difficulty sometimes lies in relating the outcome to the reference population, whose scope makes it difficult to identify precisely1. As Rebecca Solnit (2002: 11) points out, ‘the history of walking is the history of everyone, and the writer who attempts to recount it can only hope to indicate the most frequented paths in their neighbourhood...’.
3The research presented in this article is not intended as a break from other studies of recreational walking and hiking practices based on the use of practitioners’ narratives (eg Svarstad 2010, Kirshner 2017, Jacquemet 2017, Barna 2020, McLaughlin 2023), but it does have two specific features. The first is that it focuses on a population whose interest in trekking appears to be very recent – less than fifteen years old. Although Nepal has been a leading trekking destination since the 1970s, its itineraries have long attracted an almost exclusively foreign, mainly Western or Japanese, clientele (Zurick 1992, Sacareau 1997). On the other hand, walking – the ultimate means of travel in a poor country whose mountainous regions had no road network for merchants, herders, farmers or pilgrims, and a source of income for porters (including those recruited to accompany foreign trekkers when the activity developed) – seemed to offer no recreational appeal for the Nepalese population. It’s only since the 2010s that the gradual rise in domestic tourism within the country has resulted in a growing recreational use of high mountains and trekking routes by the Nepalese – particularly the younger generations (Dérioz et al 2020). There are still very few studies devoted to this phenomenon, and the research presented here on the practices of domestic trekkers and the representations that underpin them is still largely exploratory. Its second specific feature is linked to one of the most immediately apparent characteristics of these practices, both in the field and on the Internet and social media: the particularly prominent place that these young trekkers attribute to digitally capturing and sharing their mountain experience. We hypothesise that this in vivo narrative represents an integral part of this very experience, which is structured and shaped by it being staged.
- 2 ‘A qui appartiennent les paysages en Asie?’ (To whom do landscapes belong in Asia?) (...)
4Our research, which began in 2014 as part of the AQAPA2 programme, is thus based in particular on some of these digital productions, in this case the narrative videos (vlogs) posted by trekkers on YouTube at the end of their treks, whose number increased exponentially from the years 2020–2021 onwards. The information gathered from the thirty or so vlogs that were viewed and analysed (Table 1 – Appendix) concerns both their formal dimension (recording equipment, technical processes, editing, duration) and their narrative content (trekkers’ practices, images of the territory and its inhabitants, opinions expressed and dialogues). Vlogs make it possible to directly document both the practice of trekking and the people involved in capturing the experience, to grasp the extent to which these practices are articulated and mutually condition each other, and to identify the expectations and representations that underpin them both.
5At the same time, this analysis is confronted with contributions from three other sources:
6(1) direct observations were carried out in the three study areas that were selected: Helambu and Langtang-Gosainkhunda, very close to Kathmandu, and the Mardi Himal Trek sector on the southern slopes of the Annapurnas. These areas were explored during four field trips (2014, 2016, 2018 and 2022), the last two focusing exclusively on the study of domestic tourism. Many other trekking sectors could have been taken into consideration (Dérioz et al 2020), but the requirements for an approach combining fieldwork and vlog analysis led us to limit our research to these well-known areas, which are all regularly frequented by young Nepalese people due to the proximity of large urban areas (Kathmandu or Pokhara) and the very large number of online trekking vlogs about them.
- 3 Two researchers, walking separately, carefully recorded in a notebook the different groups (...)
7(2) This in situ analysis along trekking itineraries also enabled tallies to be kept and, above all, numerous micro-interviews to be conducted with trekkers, more systematically in 2022 than during previous field trips: 45 ‘flash interviews’ were carried out in Langtang, on a nine-day walking route between Syabru Besi and Kianjin Gompa, with the return journey via Thulo Syaphru, Gosainkhunda, then Chandanbari and Dhunche. Conducted as a simple conversation struck up with trekkers encountered on the way, these micro-interviews were of varying durations (we have only taken into account the most substantial ones) and their interest lies above all in their spontaneity. Taken separately, they obviously provide very patchy information, varying from one conversation to another, even if direct observations partly allowed us to complete what was said about the trek the people were doing, what made them want to come here, or their previous experiences etc. There was no pre-established questionnaire, and the objective was not to collect statistics. The only set of numerical information corresponds to a careful count, along the path, of the groups of trekkers, their size and their distinctive characteristics.3 In proceeding this way, information gradually emerges from the series of micro-interviews, the way in which they overlap and the correlations that can be established with observed facts.
- 4 Around 60 interviews were carried out during the first two periods of fieldwork (2014–2015) (...)
- 5 TAAN: Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal, NATTA: Nepal Association of Tour & Tr (...)
- 6 Notably: The Kathmandu Post, The Himalayan Times, My Republica, Nepali Headlines (D (...)
8(3) These field results were supplemented by semi-directive face-to-face interviews with tourism professionals4 (tour operators, travel agencies, service providers, accommodation providers) and tourism executives (TAAN, NATTA, NTB5), in Pokhara, Kathmandu and on different sites (lodges, teahouses). They were also completed by a survey of scientific literature dedicated to the issue of domestic tourism – such publications are still rare – and in the English-speaking Nepalese press.6 In the absence of usable statistical data about the Nepalese clientele, this multi-method approach enabled us to lay out empirical field results from a countrywide perspective.
9The paper presents these results according to three successive registers which are obviously closely interrelated. For each, we briefly review the methodological issues involved. The first register, which broadens and hones the analyses of an earlier publication (Dérioz et al 2020), concerns the trekking practices of the predominantly young Nepalese public: when and in what context did this activity develop, and along which itineraries? Who are these trekkers, how many are they and how do they practise trekking? Are there any ways in which their practices differ from those of the international clientele which is heterogeneous? The second register focuses on the role played by the recording and online publication of these individual or collective trekking experiences. This involves ascertaining the role played by this activity before, during and after the trek, assessing its technical dimension and examining its structuring role within the experience undergone by trekkers. Finally, the third register relates to the main common features of these filmed narratives, to endeavours to distinguish between what they choose to show and what is left in the shadows, and to attempts to grasp what these narrative choices reveal about the cultural representations underlying these practices.
- 7 ‘Stop discrimination against local Nepalese trekking within country’, by Gitta Shre (...)
10Although it’s not possible to quantify the phenomenon, a number of factors suggest that Nepalese people started to frequent trekking routes in about 2010: this is the approximate date referred to by the tourism operators (travel agency managers, lodge managers) in our interviews, and it also largely corresponds to the first treks undertaken by the most experienced of the trekkers interviewed, who were in their thirties or older. The very first articles about this phenomenon appeared in the national press over the following years, addressing in particular the forms of discrimination Nepalese trekkers suffered on the part of tourism professionals (Upreti et al 2013: 54), who consider this new clientele to be less profitable than foreign customers: for example, ‘Nepalis are seemingly not eligible for first-come-first-serve and are often placed last on the list of preferences by any hotel’, an article in the Kathmandu Post in 2014 points out.7 This recurring problem still existed in June 2020, as expressed in the responses given by Nepalese respondents to an online questionnaire (Aryal et al 2022), and one of the vlogs analysed in our study still expresses indignation at this state of affairs, naming and shaming the offending hotel [see table 1 (appendix) – vlog 1a 2023].
- 8 In 2013, a British NGO report (Jones 2013) highlighted the general lack of awareness of dom (...)
- 9 The theme of the 2018–2019 incentive campaign, ‘Pahile Desh, Ani Bidesh’ (‘visit yo (...)
- 10 Announced by the government for the 2021–22 financial year, the introduction of 10-day paid (...)
11However, it seems that Nepalese tourism professionals’ view of domestic customers has changed in recent years, on the one hand because the volume of this clientele has increased considerably (Basnyat et al 2020) – there is not enough data to precisely quantify this development – and, on the other hand, because the successive crises linked, first of all, to the devastating earthquakes of April 2015 and then to the Covid 19 pandemic (2020–2021), by durably curbing the number of international visitors (-32% in 2015, -81% in 2020, cf Anup 2021: 101), have highlighted the economic value of this long-ignored domestic market,8 without which many tourist structures would not have survived the absence of foreign tourists (Bhatta et al 2022). For the past ten years or so many agencies have focused all or part of their business on domestic customers, offering package holidays, specifically targeting Nepalese tourists. At the same time, various strategies have been considered and sometimes initiated by government bodies to promote domestic tourism (Silwal et al 2022) in the form of promotional campaigns, such as those of 2016 and 2018–19,9 or a possible increase in the number of days’ leave to encourage the Nepalese to go on holiday10 (Sapkota 2022; Bhatta et al 2024).
- 11 Their contribution to GDP was estimated at 30% in 2015 (Cosic et al 2017) and is more (...)
- 12 Source: National Statistic Office, Fourth Nepal Living Standard Survey, 2024.
- 13 The contemporary development of domestic tourism takes very diverse forms, including the gr (...)
12The purpose of this paper is not to analyse in detail the respective weight and reciprocal influences of the many factors that have fostered the growth of domestic tourism but to outline the main trends. Although Nepal continues to register modest economic growth and yet remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with ever-increasing dependence on remittances from Nepalese people working abroad,11 the end of the civil war (2006) and the change of political regime (2015) have been accompanied by profound sociocultural transformations. The acceleration of urbanisation (Bhattarai et al 2023), the strengthening of the education system and the decline in illiteracy, the gradual rise in living standards and the spread of consumer goods, such as motorised two-wheelers (used by a quarter of households) and cell phones (94% of Nepalese people own one),12 and the development of jobs in the tertiary sector have all been both components and indicators of the emergence of a predominantly urban middle class, which has grown from barely 7% of the country’s population in 1995–96 to 22% in 2010–11 and to around a quarter of the population today (Tiwari, 2016). Diverse in its make-up and income levels (Maharjan, 2021), this middle class includes civil servants, doctors, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and service employees with decent stable salaries, who often have to varying degrees a higher standard of education than the national average, a more or less good command of English, specific forms of involvement in social and political life (particularly within non-profit organisations, cf Lamsal 2022), home ownership for the most part and a lifestyle in which consumption and leisure play a significant role. ‘A certain amount of conspicuous consumption is involved, reflecting a need to “show off” one’s status’, emphasises Rukamanee Maharjan (2021) who notes that this middle class has so far hardly been studied. And yet, this middle class largely fuels contemporary growth of domestic tourism,13 in a country that has long been equipped in terms of infrastructures for welcoming foreign tourism and where the widespread use of cell phones and smartphones, as well as the progressive deployment of a network of roads and tracks of varying quality (Sudmeier-Rieux et al 2019, Coburn 2020), tend to facilitate mobility up to and including the Himalayan valleys.
- 14 The Langtang National Park administration, for example, counted 5,559 Nepalese (25%) out of (...)
13Despite the absence of national statistics on the number of Nepalese visitors to mountain areas – Nepalese nationals’ exemption from paying entry fees to protected areas prevents the Nepalese administration from being able to count foreign visitors – the spectacular increase in the number of Nepalese trekkers can be assessed, both quantitatively and qualitatively, on the basis of rare local censuses (Langtang National Park),14 statements from administrators and operators, which are often echoed in the press, as well as field counts and observations. Even though the latter are only ‘snapshots’, limited in time and space, they allow for interesting cross-checks with on-site statements by accommodation providers, restaurant owners and guides, with which figures everywhere have turned out to be relatively convergent. Around half of all clients were Nepalese in 2016 on the Mardi Himal trek, one of the most popular (Dérioz and Létang 2020). On the Helambu trail, in 2018 domestic tourists made up between a quarter and a third of all trekkers. And on the Langtang trail, in 2022 locals constituted over half of all clients according to the lodge owners we interviewed, where our counts (4 to 11 November) showed a proportion of around 60% Nepalese trekkers.
- 15 Interview on 11 November 2022 with a young man, 33 years old, internet worker, living in Ka (...)
14Press articles and interviews with agency managers in Pokhara and Kathmandu are consistent with these field findings, which help to pinpoint Nepalese people’s preferred destinations. Mardi Himal, Langtang, Gosainkunda, Poon Hill, Rara Lake, Annapurna Base Camp and Mustang are among the most popular itineraries, all of which are accessible by road and can be completed in just a few days. But discussions with the trekkers themselves show that some of them have already embarked on longer itineraries, such as the Annapurna circuit trek, which has been considerably shortened by the construction of new roads in the Kali Gandaki and Marsyangdi valleys, and even the Manaslu circuit trek or the Nar and Phu valleys route. The Khumbu treks, however, are still out of reach for many because they require more time and involve taking a plane, as pointed out by a Nepalese trekker who had already done a dozen treks: ‘The Everest base camp and Khumbu, no. The plane is too expensive and, if you don’t take the plane to Lukla, it takes too much time because you have to start walking from very far away, from low altitudes, and it takes you at least three weeks there and back...’15 In addition to the popularity that certain routes have met with, and in which social media play a key role and to which we’ll return later, the question of cost remains a determining factor in the choice of itinerary. The start of the trek is reached by motorcycle, scooter, bus or hire car with driver at roughly the same periods as international tourists (spring and autumn), although the Nepalese also tend to frequent the mountains in early and late winter, when the snow is already (or still) there.
15In the areas where we worked, the vast majority of Nepalese trekkers are young men of the same age group, walking in groups (friends and/or family), of urban origin (Kathmandu, but also Pokhara, Chitwan or other average-sized towns), belonging to the upper castes and social classes of their ethnic groups (Bahun-Chetr, Newari, Thakali, Gurung, Tamang, etc), and doing studies or a job in the service sector. Keen to limit the number of days spent trekking, they don’t rely on guides and porters, and speed is their priority (light backpacks, long stages). Careful observation, however, reveals a certain diversity in the clientele, reflected in slightly different practices, as shown by the outline typology in Langtang (Table 2). Moreover, the use of digital recordings and their exploitation on social networks is a constant for these groups of young people, whatever their make-up, practices or age group.
Table 2: Typology of Nepalese trekkers on the Langtang Valley and Gosainkhunda treks (4–11 November 2022)
| Category of trekkers |
Distinctive features and specific practices |
% |
| Student groups |
4 groups of around ten students (tourism, geology, botany, IT), 22–23 years old, on field trips, itinerant, single-sex, with their teachers. |
12 |
| Young adult groups (18–24 years old) |
Groups often with between 5 and 8 members, mostly single-sex, (mostly boys, but some exclusively female groups), walking together, sometimes listening to music, keen to limit the cost as much as possible (eat snacks and Chinese noodles on the way, take the main meal in the evening at the lodge where they opt for dormitories). No guides or porters. |
41 |
| Grown adult groups (24–35 years old) |
Smaller groups (3–5 people), mostly mixed (including couples), of friends, colleagues and/or family members. Some group members already have several treks to their record. More likely to stop at teahouses than younger groups. No porters, guides rarely used (1 case). |
41 |
| Young couples |
Couples on their own (married, sometimes newly-weds) are quite rare. Over 25 years old, fairly slow walking pace, many stops to record the trek (photos, selfies, films). |
3 |
| Trekkers 40–60 years old |
Quite experienced trekkers (men), often in pairs (sometimes alone), with heavier backpacks. Some have been trekking since the 1990s. |
1.5 |
| Families |
Only one family encountered (parents with teenage children), with porters, fairly slow walking pace. |
1.5 |
16This typology is established on the basis of our field counts over an 8-day period, and corresponding to around 350 Nepalese encountered in the mountains. The percentages in the 3rd column are only for information purposes, given the non-exhaustiveness and inevitable inaccuracy of these counts. They show the predominance of young people of all levels (beginners vs experienced trekkers) walking in groups, according to two quite clearly distinct modalities based on age group. Men are by far the most numerous (85–90%), but women are not totally absent: they make up a few all-female groups among the youngest trekkers, and they are members, either in couples or individually, of some older groups. Other forms of mixed groups (including members of different castes or ethnic groups, or both Nepalese people and foreigners) were also observed. The proximity of Kathmandu leads to an increase in the proportion of student groups on field trips with teachers, compared to more faraway treks, and illustrates the important role played by studies in initiating people to the mountains. These groups of students were counted separately, given that their visit was part of their studies, not for leisure activities chosen on their own initiative. The trail’s difficulty, on the other hand, explains the small number of families which may, however, account for a higher proportion on easier treks, where they spend more money than the average Nepalese trekker and make greater use of porters.
17Both in terms of the vlogs analysed and the fieldwork, it did not seem relevant to distinguish trekkers residing in Nepal from those who lived abroad and were on vacation in their country of origin. In fact, none of the groups encountered were exclusively made up of trekkers belonging to the diaspora, and the same is true in the vlogs in our sample made by Nepalese people living abroad (cf fig 3 and 6). As confirmed by our interviews with agency directors in Kathmandu who generate a significant part of their turnover from business with Nepalese tourists (trekking, but also package tours in a vehicle with driver, or holidays in homestays), Nepalese people from the diaspora who return to the country on vacation constitute a clientele of prime importance: first, because they often have greater financial means than Nepalese people residing in the country and, second, because they generally bring members of their family or friends along with them on their trips. In doing so, they therefore represent one of the driving forces behind the development of domestic tourism rather than a separate category of international tourists.
18For as long as there have been tourists, the process of collecting memories along the way and then shaping them into a travelogue, both to fix memories and to share them with others, has taken many different forms depending on the media available: logbooks and written accounts, photo albums, slide-show evenings, Super 8 films, before videocassettes added sound to image. The ultra-fast modern development of digital tools and their uses has revolutionised this exercise on three distinct but complementary levels: the ease with which images and videos can be made and stored, the planetary expansion of their potential broadcasting, and the potential immediacy of their dissemination. This combination has therefore become a commonplace feature of contemporary ‘connected’ tourism, both a major producer and consumer of images (Safaa et al 2021, Olmedo et al 2022).
- 16 Starting in 2015 for research on online videos.
- 17 See, for example, the work on the impact of online promotional videos on the image (...)
19The use of blog content (texts, photos, hyperlinks) and then vlogs16 (videos) as a source of information and research material, dates back to the mid-2000s and was first developed in the field of marketing, as a means of accessing tourists’ practices, choices, opinions and representations (Banyai and Glover 2012, Leung et al 2013). Whether it involved content analysis (more quantitative) or narrative analysis (more qualitative), the aim of this type of research was, on the one hand, to assess the impact of tourists’ or professionals’ productions on the image of a destination17 and, on the other hand, to derive indications of customer expectations and feelings to be reinvested in the marketing and management strategies of the destinations. In so doing, many of these studies have also highlighted the narrative dimension of these testimonials and how they help to trace two elements: the meanings that tourists attribute to their ‘experience’ (see, for example, the study devoted to Thamel, Kathmandu’s tourist district, by Grossman-Thompson and Linder (2014)) and how the staging of this experience contributes in return to its own structuring, as shown by Xu and Zhang’s (2021) analysis of the expectations and experiences of Chinese female tourists in Nepal, based on their online travel blogs, interpreted according to Erwin Goffman’s dramaturgic key concepts. Here Chinese female tourists are regarded as performers, the Internet as a virtual stage on which they interact socially with a distant audience, and the management of the online self-presentation of their experiences in Nepal as a processing performance, in which they play a role and ‘hide their true selves in the backstage’ (Xu and Zhang 2021: 3). Three ‘typical plots’ – nature (environment and landscape), humanity (meeting with Nepalese people) and spirituality (religious dimension) – are developed in turn in the blogs. The writing of the latter appears to contribute, as a continuous process, to shaping the well-being – or well-becoming, since it is a process – experience of female travellers.
- 18 Even if we do not formally place ourselves in the conceptual and lexical field of E Goffman (...)
- 19 YouTube vlogs dedicated to the Mardi Himal trek, in which Nepalese video creators a (...)
20Three converging elements have led us to position ourselves from the same perspective,18 and to consider that these digital practices constitute one of the founding modalities of the experience of young Nepalese trekkers: observation data which attests to the place these practices occupy and the time devoted to them throughout the trekking day; the testimonies collected over the course of the interviews, both about the recordings made by the interviewees and about the videos consulted before coming, or there and then; finally, the number of videos posted on YouTube and the speed at which they have multiplied,19 following a curve synchronised with that of the increase in the number of Nepalese trekkers. This concomitance between the widespread use of smartphones, the explosion of social media (earlier and faster for YouTube here than for Facebook, Instagram or TikTok) and the national craze for discovering Nepal in general and the Himalayas in particular, as well as the fairly massive nature of the phenomenon, lends a distinctive aspect to our study areas compared to worldwide developments, which constitutes one of the major social markers of contemporary globalisation. The extent of the data contained in these numerous vlogs is significant, and so are the problems involved in exploiting them (uncertainties over their overall scale, sampling principles, the time-consuming nature of viewing videos and taking notes, translation required for videos posted in Nepali etc). We focused on the analysis of some thirty vlogs in two different areas (Mardi Himal and Langtang), using the same grid approach. The main findings were then tested (and sometimes honed) through the cursory viewing of other videos centred on the same terrains and chosen randomly. Our work represents a simple exploratory survey in this data repository, complementary to observations and interviews, far from recent research that foresees the automation of ‘video-mining’, with the help of artificial intelligence (Schwenzow et al 2021).
- 20 Already 255,000 views (and 4,500 likes) as of 6 June 23 for the video on the Mardi Himal Tr (...)
21The first observation is that constant widespread use of digital tools, above all smartphones, in all phases of the personal and collective trekking experience is primarily informative. As indispensable a tool as backpacks and walking poles, smartphones allow for continuous search, use, production, storage and exchange of information. Their role is fundamental ahead of the trip, both in triggering the desire to set off and in the practical organisation of the trek. Because trekking as a recreational practice is undoubtedly a recent discovery for the Nepalese and, since there are many neo-practitioners, these shared video accounts systematically combine valuing the experience with providing practical information. From the most basic to the most elaborate videos, which sometimes accumulate thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands of views,20 the invitation to travel that they offer is thus declined on two distinct yet complementary levels: trekking as an unforgettable experience – which we shall come back to later –, but also as a feasible activity, within everyone’s reach, with information on access methods, itineraries, difficulty levels, length of stages, food and accommodation prices (fig1), recommended addresses, required equipment, whether or not to hire a guide etc. The exchanges that ensue in the online comments between the public and the vloggers, after the videos have been viewed, extend this ambivalence, between positive comments with a lot of ‘likes’ and emoticons, and practical questions very often about the budget to foresee or the duration of the trek (which also relates to its cost) (fig2).
Fig 1: Documenting on screen the cost of accommodation and food on the Mardi Himal Trek
A small bell is heard every time the price of a service or product is displayed. Created in February 2020, the channel currently (9 April 2024) features 56 videos and has a total of 11,300 subscribers, with 394,129 views. Vedica Gajurel defines herself as a ‘full-time travel vlogger’.
Screenshots from the Mardi Himal Trek video (episode 1, November 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkRdbfXVgQA) posted by Vedica Gajurel on her YouTube channel ‘Vedica’ (Table 1, vlog 1d).
Fig 2: Excerpts from exchanges published in the ‘comments’ section of vlogs about the Mardi Himal Trek
Source: vlog ‘Mardi Himal: The Pristine Trek in Nepal | A Complete Trekking Details’, Ram Shara Upreti, https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=IL_E-Fp-I4E&t=0s, posted on 26 June 2016, 92 472 views, 388 comments.
22For some videotrekkers, who regularly add to their YouTube channels posting their own videos, this documentary function is central and explicitly constitutes one of the aims of the trip, and may also represent one of the ways of funding it. Practical information may become more precise and serve as product placement by referring to specific articles and establishments (fig1). For example, the video on the Mardi Himal Trek by the team from the YouTube channel ‘Nepal’ 8th Wonder of the World includes interviews with lodge and hotel managers, with cutaway shots of the facilities or of the view from the establishment, clearly intended for promotional purposes. A few self-promotional videos from trekking agencies or vlog-cum-advertorial shot hybrids by influencers are also among the mass of posts viewed on the trekking itineraries selected for this article.
23Insofar as it is primarily these documents that are used by young Nepalese people to choose and prepare their trip, it is through them that both the trekking experience (itinerary, duration, stages, objectives, budget etc) and its narrative are structured. It is as if the hours spent online viewing these travel accounts had gradually imposed a dual ‘arrangement’, that of the trekking experience itself and of its video staging. Depending on the videotrekker’s recording equipment, skills and dedication, the videos posted are of rather variable quality, both technically (image and sound quality) and construction-wise (editing). In terms of equipment, most experiences are filmed with a smartphone (often at the end of a pole) or with an on-board camera (such as a GoPro), but some trekkers also have much more sophisticated photo or video cameras, and sometimes even drones. This enables time-lapse or aerial views to be incorporated into the video.
24The most elaborate videos, both on location and during editing, serve as the common ‘template’. Making them involves accepting constraints during the trek: walking while talking and holding a pole, repeating certain passages after having first positioned and triggered the camera, side-tracking shots while walking, carrying equipment. And then investing considerable time upon return: editing sequences, chaptering, special effects (slow and fast motion, fade-in and fade-out etc), inlays, subtitles, music, sound effects, articulating live sound and voice-overs. Reflecting on the shot and the way it will be processed afterwards, ie on the future narrative of the experience, thus becomes one of the major dimensions of the trek (fig3). One of the trekker-vloggers interviewed just beneath Gosainkhunda said that filming had taught him to look at the territory he crossed on the trek: ‘Shooting videos taught me how to watch things, the people, the landscape...It’s all different for me now. So frustrating when the batteries are empty, and I can’t shoot anymore!’ (Laurebina, 9 November 2022).
Fig 3: Trekking and capturing the trek: inseparable modalities of experience
Left: Screenshot from the Mardi Himal Trek video by Rob Kaleido (table 1, vlog 1e), a Nepalese vlogger who shares his time between the UK and Nepal, and whose YouTube channel has 8,500 subscribers. Right: a group of students immortalising their arrival at the summit of Kianjin Ri.
Sources: Left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKNp6jRaPY&ab_channel=RobKaleidoo (posted on 4 May 2020). Right: Langtang, 9 November 2024, photograph by Pierre Dérioz.
25The production and consultation of images are thus totally encapsulated in the trekking practice of young Nepalese people who view their photos and videos during breaks – those stored in their phone’s memory as well as those they have just taken. They sometimes use the documents archived on their cell phones to back up their statements in the interviews we had with them. Because they were produced with no interaction with the researchers (except when we were interviewed by the ‘reporters’ of a YouTube channel of video documentaries dedicated to Nepal’s tourist regions), the videos they posted proved to be highly complementary to our field observations and interviews in documenting their practices and expectations, and in attempting to understand the collective representations that underpin them.
26Although they vary in length and content, these vlogs don’t reflect a pre-structured written project. They rely on sequences shot according to the opportunities and inspiration of the moment. Depending on the case, the narration merely consists in the sequence of images or it is undertaken by a narrator, sometimes in front of the camera – between stages or even on the way – and sometimes as voice-over added at the editing phase. But beyond these formal differences and the singularities specific to each individual (the narrator) and collective (the accompanying group) experience, a certain number of elements can be found to varying degrees in most of the videos published.
- 21 https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nwMk_1PmM&ab_channel=VedicaGajurel (table 1 – vlog 1d).
- 22 Active since 13 August 2019, the YouTube channel Purna Traveller, ‘based on budget travel (...)
27The trek’s mountain setting is first and foremost an opportunity to exalt a privileged moment of collective life within groups of friendly young people (or young adults) of the same age, to stage their discussions and shared experiences, to show them joking or heckling completely free of the direct control of parents or family. In keeping with the scenes observed in situ along the trail or in lodges’ common rooms , the videos show snowball fights, lively evenings – a little too lively at times in the eyes of foreign tourists, often of a different generation – them singing, playing card games and so on. In addition to their backpacks, young trekkers sometimes carry guitars (fig 4), small wireless speakers, hookahs etc. Both along the way and during the evenings, these relaxed or festive moments also lead to exchanges between people from different groups and meetings, especially with other Nepalese people but sometimes also with trekkers from other countries. The videos often simply hint at these encounters through images and/or oral narration, and many of them present the trek as a privileged opportunity for interaction with strangers of all origins. Some, however, give a longer account of these encounters. For example, Vedica Gajurel (‘Solo Girl’, mentioned earlier)21) films a night spent with fellow trekkers in a freezing cold tea house, waiting for the sun to rise at the Mardi Himal View Point – ‘Just like these birds, I met friends along the way, to end this journey together’ –, at the same spot where, still at dawn, the host of the YouTube channel Purna Traveller22 captures his full-length conversation with a young Nepalese woman (who is already familiar with his productions) about their respective photography and video practices.
Fig 4: The festive and convivial aspect of the trek, widely relayed in vlogs
Left: Young Nepalese trekker with his guitar (Laurebina, 9 November 2022). Right: Evening card game in a Pitam Deurali lodge (Mardi Himal trek).
Sources: Left: Photograph by Pierre Dérioz (Laurebina, 9 November 2022). Right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKNp6jRaPY&ab_channel=RobKaleidoo, posted on 4 May 2020,table 1, vlog 1e.
- 23 Two evening conversations between several young men, not all of which was translatable, r (...)
28The question of relations between men and women is not addressed as such in the videos, which nonetheless often feature gender mixing both within groups and in casual encounters, in a trivialised way, as a natural consequence of the very conditions of trekking and the type of accommodation on offer. Most of the young couples we met in the field were married. But this theme nonetheless seemed to take on a certain importance in the discussions overheard on site within the groups.23
- 24 The descent, briefly outlined in just a few images at the end of the video, is hardly eve (...)
29The material and physical aspects of trekking often feature prominently in these videos, particularly in the case of inexperienced trekkers who perceive their trekking as an ‘adventure’ rather than a sporting performance. While milestones and moments of comfort are given a privileged place in the narrative, starting with the meals which are abundantly filmed and commented on, sometimes with particular emphasis on their ‘organic’ character, the hardships are also portrayed, usually in a humorous way – uncertainties about the itinerary and errors, difficulties in finding one’s bearings, rain, tricky sections because slippery (mud, snow) or dangerous (narrow ridges above High Camp on the Mardi Himal trek), exhaustion and breathlessness at altitude, for example on the steep slopes of the Kianjin Ri or Tsergo Ri in the Langtang Valley. It’s almost never a question of records, speed or elevation gain, but rather of individual achievements, challenges met and altitudes reached24 (fig5).
Fig 5: Confronting the hardships of the trail in good spirits: the spice of ‘adventure’
Left: Slippery, rain-soaked start to Mardi Himal Trek for a group of two men and two women. The narrator-videographer was making this trek for the fourth time, accompanied by a friend and his two sisters who somewhat lacked training. Mountain sickness that one of the sisters suffered dissuaded them from going all the way up to Mardi Himal upper viewpoint (table 1, vlog 1b).
Right: Effects of altitude and steepness of the trail on the ascent of Kianjin Ri: ’Though it is very effortful to ascend, nevertheless you forget your tiredness when seeing the beauty of the scenery’ (table 1, vlog 2j).
Sources: Left: ‘Mardi Trek’, Samrat Magar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmHlGG7gK4, posted on 13 November 2022. Right: ‘Langtang Trek, Nepal’, Nirdosh Paudyal, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkvtF-I9Dmk, posted on 29 February 2024.
30If we leave aside the frequent use of rather grandiose music in these vlogs to underline and even dramatise panoramas or walking sequences, the evocation by the trekker-vloggers of their adventures and the personal challenges encountered during the trek does not seek to heroise their performance. Quite the contrary! Their vlogs often deal with a certain degree of self-derision about their mistakes and misadventures along the way. Neither the vlogs nor the interviews seem to refer to illustrious models (very few young Nepalese people had even heard of the recent exploit (2019) of Sherpa Nirmal Purja, with his ascent of the 14 8,000-metre-high peaks in just over six months, which does not prevent them from displaying the Nepalese flag each time they reach a high pass or a small summit (fig3 and 7). It is only when reading these vlogs’ online comments that we come across an expression of admiration among some of those who have viewed the vlogs, which transforms some of these trekker-vloggers into a source of inspiration for part of their audience. Only one of the vlogs we analysed (table 1, vlog 1a, already cited) evokes admiration – on the part of a group of young trekkers who meet those who were making the video and who introduce themselves as ‘big fans’ of the former’s YouTube channel. If there is heroisation, it is therefore in relation to the interest and quality of the digital productions recounting the experiences of vloggers, rather than to the experience of the trek itself. In other words, potential heroes are heroes in their capacity as vloggers rather than trekkers, thanks to the way they capture the beauty of the landscape rather than to their own physical exploits.
31The glorification of Himalayan landscapes – subalpine rhododendron forests in bloom, long sharp ridges, foam-white rivers crossed via suspension bridges, high snow-capped peaks and glaciers – obeys much the same visual and semantic codes as the videos produced by international tourists: sunrises (more so than sunsets), seas of cloud, sweeping panoramic views of high peaks (sometimes pointed at and named, sometimes identified by their name inlaid in the image), all form part of a common aesthetic and imaginary of the (very) high mountains. Vloggers use the same superlatives, beyond the respective cultural differences and references of Nepalese and foreign visitors (fig 6). The fact that, before producing their own videos, they are all consumers of the same images online, often in the order chosen by search engines, can only reinforce this form of joint admiration, which is also reflected in on-site discussions.
Fig 6: Sharing ‘beautiful landscapes’ and photography with young Nepalese people in the field
Left: Narrow pass and waterfall on the Trishuli Khola above Dhunche: photo shared by a young Nepalese man from Kathmandu, in his thirties, who works ‘in the Internet’ and has been trekking since 2012. We took the same detour to admire and photograph this site, and he confided in me that he has a particular liking for rivers and waterfalls. Right: ‘Look, that’s how the landscape is supposed to look like without the fog. I took the picture two years ago with friends. Hinchuli and Annapurna South are so extraordinary seen from here. Maybe it will be clear tomorrow early morning’. Very well equipped for photography, this young trekker, who had just returned from studying abroad, found on his smartphone for us the photograph he had taken in fine weather of the panorama that we saw masked by fog when we met at High Camp (Mardi Himal trek).
Sources: Left: photograph by Pierre Dérioz, 11 November 2022. Right: photograph by Pierre Dérioz, 27 April 2016.
- 25 As our two visits to Gosainkhunda were outside religious festival periods, we m (...)
32The emotion felt when crossing the chaotic ravine left by the landslide that crushed the village of Langtang in the 2015 earthquake, burying some 300 people, is similarly communicated in Nepalese and international vlogs that evoke it. Sacred aspects that are often present along the way – prayer flags and prayer wheels, small altars, stupas, Mani stones etc – are shown above all for the key place they occupy in landscapes and generally come with no religious-oriented comments. This is less true of the trek to the sacred site of Gosainkhunda, a pilgrimage site that welcomes thousands of pilgrims every year, particularly if the videos are of ‘pilgrim trekkers’. While not everyone takes a bath at dawn in the icy waters of the sacred lake, most Nepalese trekkers leave with a little sacred water from the Trishuli Khola, the river with three springs gushing from the holes left by the three points of Shiva’s trident. It’s true that images and comments in Westerners’ posts about this same itinerary often give greater prominence to the religious dimension, or more precisely to the spiritual and meditative dimension. This may seem counterintuitive, given the way religion and spirituality permeate Nepalese society. However, young Nepalese trekkers are engaged in a recreational activity and friendly group interactions here, far from their families which are often the backbone of the religious dimension of their lives, which they tend to leave behind during the experience they undergo in the course of the trek. It is different for Westerners – and also for the Chinese (according to Xu et al 2021) – insofar as the large place taken up by religion and spirituality in the country goes hand in hand with their expectations with regard to Nepal, and fits in well with the form of respect that nature in general (Wang 2023), and especially the high Himalayan mountains, inspires in them (Sacareau 2014).25
33On the other hand, it seems that Nepalese vlogs give greater prominence than other videos to rural landscapes, and to agricultural and pastoral activities (sheep, yaks), in keeping with the interest shown in the quality of meals and local produce (nak (female yak) cheese in Langtang or Chandanbari, buckthorn juice from Tibet etc). Several of the videos viewed (fig7, left) even include interviews of varying lengths with local inhabitants, farmers or yak breeders, which are difficult for foreign trekkers to conduct because of the language barrier. This attention paid to rural life and to the different mountain produce must be understood in relation to the fact that the vast majority of these young trekkers are city dwellers, living in Kathmandu or other large cities in Nepal. This can be interpreted as a form of reconnection with the rural roots of their families, or more generally of their country.
Fig 7: Vlogs in ‘report’ mode and expression of a national sentiment
Left: A discussion with a shepherd in his shelter, about guarding yak herds on the high-altitude rangelands and attacks by snow leopards and bears, over a cup of tea made with fresh nak milk. Right: Flag flown at Badel Danda before the trekkers had to turn back because of snow on the Mardi Himal Trek. The Nepalese flag accompanies them throughout this vlog, which often evokes the resources of which Nepal is proud: ‘what my country has to offer’, repeats the narrator, who lives in Scotland. He filmed this trek with friends during his holiday.
Sources: Left: ‘Trek to Langtang Valley | Nepal | Episode 1’, Pawa Sam Travel, https://youtu.be/E0aRE4OnzJ0?feature=shared, posted on 23 November 2021 (table 1, vlog 2c). Right: ‘Mardi Himal Trek’, Rob Kaleido, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKNp6jRaPY&ab_channel=RobKaleidoo, posted on 4 May 2020, (table 1, vlog 1e).
34Neither the analysis of the vlogs nor on-site interviews gave a clear indication of how this lively demonstration of nationalism came to be expressed by these young trekkers from a country which, since the turn of the century, has emerged from a decade of civil war, become a republic, endowed itself with a constitution, but has also had to recover from a devastating earthquake and the Covid 19 pandemic. However, several of our interlocutors emphasised that these two crises, which particularly damaged the tourism sector, had in fact been a wake-up call: in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, tourism professionals rallied round to send out the message to the rest of the world – but also to domestic customers – that it was still possible to trek in Nepal. The ‘Hike for Nepal’ campaign, posted on Instagram, which is a frequently quoted example of this approach, began by staging twice-weekly treks in the Kathmandu region to encourage local customers to do the same and international customers to return.
35Beyond the omnipresence of the Nepalese flag in most of the vlogs we viewed, it’s quite remarkable to see that many of them still follow, to some extent, this promotional logic. The names of some of the YouTube channels are evocative of this, such as ‘Nepal 8th Wonder’ or ‘Nepal 360’, which has been active since February 2016 and has 72,200 subscribers (14 April 2024), 149 videos and over 12 million views (https://www.youtube.com/@Nepal360 (table 1, vlogs 1o, 2h, 2i): (description in English) ‘a travel channel created by husband “Suchan” and wife “Sachina”! Experience the beautiful atmosphere in and out Nepal as we travel’). The use of English, at least for presenting the videos on YouTube but quite often also in the videos themselves in the form of direct comments or subtitles, also testifies to a desire to address a non-exclusively national audience. The presence of foreign trekkers who come to admire Nepal’s landscapes is also presented as a source of pride: ‘It is very good to see so many foreigners back to visit Nepal again’, comments Samrat Magar in 2022, the year in which international tourist numbers were set to rise again after the pandemic-related slump (table 1, vlog 1b, ‘Mardi Trek, Nepal’ –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmHlGG7gK4).
36Often forming an integral part of the story, this explicit desire to highlight the beauty and richness of the country to which one belongs can be found both in the vlogs of young Nepalese people living in Nepal and in vlogs of Nepalese people who have lived (studied) or still live abroad. The latter, when they belong to the middle class, constitute a particularly interesting target clientele for tourism operators (travel agencies, hotels etc): above-average income, lifestyles and cultural habits similar to those of the international clientele, and the capacity to inspire the domestic clientele (family, friends) when they return to their home country.
37This research highlights three simple findings: (1) both the viewing and the creation of these vlogs are a major part of the tourist trekking experience of young Nepalese people; (2) vlogs are present at all stages of this experience, before, during and after (Decroly 2015); and (3) they clearly fulfil multiple interactive functions, that is they serve to find or transmit practical information, to showcase the vlogger alone or in a group and the challenges met, to share a story, either live or on replay, within a more or less close social circle – family, friends, Facebook group etc –, and often to showcase the home country, Nepal, which also serves as a social framework for defining one’s identity or the group’s identity. The time spent researching, consulting, exchanging (comments), filming, editing, posting etc covers the entire experience and, paradoxically, serves to singularise each individual or collective experience, while linking it to experiences of a similar nature. To a certain extent, we could consider that this form of continuous narrative, which can be transmitted almost live, constitutes a filter between the experience itself and the framework in which it takes place. Yet it appears to be the very matrix of experience, the crucible in which it is structured, which each individual adapts according to his or her expectations and constraints. Such is the case of the young entrepreneur from Kathmandu, a football fan who films his trek with his cell phone and a pole: ‘I don’t film continuously, of course, just particular moments...encounters, meals, parts of the trail...when I’m on my own, I comment while I’m walking, I narrate...for myself, to remember, and to tell my friends’. ‘I’d love to make a film, but I know I won’t have time when I get home. But I post little clips [on TikTok] when I stop walking’ (interview, Rimche, 7 November 2022).
38Behind the effects of repetition and the sometimes apparent banality, vlogs constitute very rich material, an intermediary between the materiality of experience and the imaginary that underpins it and thrives on it. It’s not easy to provide an overview of this overabundant reserve of information, for which ‘video mining’ techniques would undoubtedly enable further progress to be made, especially in the quantified consolidation of hypotheses. However, in the absence of such methods and based on a small sample limited to a single channel (YouTube), the combination of the analysis of a selection of vlogs with in-depth interviews of resource persons, as well as observation and flash interviews in the field, enabled very useful cross-validations.
39These confirmed the importance in mountain areas of flows generated by domestic tourism, and in particular of young Nepalese trekkers whose characteristics, practices (tourist and digital) and collective representations are made clear in the three sections of this article. For companies operating in the tourist sector, as well as for public authorities at different levels that seem to have become more aware of the strategic importance of this domestic tourism, staging the tourist experience on social networks clearly points to the way to go and to the type of media information or incentive marketing campaigns aimed at young adults. However, the role played by school and university education is also highlighted, both by encounters with groups of students attending workshops in the field and by the testimonies of young trekkers who came on their own initiative. The analysis of the main constraints encountered by trekkers – accessibility and availability – also reveals two essential policy levers dedicated to the development of domestic tourism on a countrywide scale, the supply and cost of public transport, and the possibility of benefiting from paid leave to travel.