Ali Imran Fazal co-hosts Facing North's Around Karakoram journey – and unlike most hosts on trips to Northern Pakistan, he is not visiting. He grew up here. Ali is the son of a well-known doctor whose medical postings took the family across the northern areas of Pakistan, and he spent part of his early schooling in Skardu itself. The valleys on this itinerary are not research for him – they are the places he grew up moving between, year after year, as his father was posted from one station to the next. That gives him decades of first-hand time in Baltistan, Hunza, Nagar and Gilgit: the heritage, the languages, the food, the etiquette, and the hundred small things a visiting host simply cannot know. Since then, Ali has travelled across the world – studying in Southeast Asia and spending extensive time in the United Kingdom and the United States. He understands exactly what an international traveller expects from a trip, and where Pakistan needs explaining rather than defending.