By Tom Allen\u00a0<\/a> : It\u2019s really, really lovely to hear this reaction from viewers of Karun<\/a><\/em>. It is exactly the reaction I\u2019d hoped for, ever since my\u00a0idea to make a travel documentary in Iran was born.<\/p>\n

Best of all, it is a natural reaction.<\/p>\n

We designed the adventure<\/a> loosely to let Iran and the Iranians we met speak for themselves.\u00a0They did. That\u2019s what\u2019s elicits the \u201cwow\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, it is possible that by waiting so long (I\u2019ve been visiting Iran annually since 2008) and then investing so much time in making the film (nearly two years at the time of writing), I may actually have missed my own boat.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The aim with Karun<\/em> was always to try and paint a more nuanced portrait of this misunderstood nation, and to make it feel like a viable destination for travel. Following the longest river in the country was just an excuse. But in the 18 months or so between our journey and the film\u2019s launch, it seems Iran has already become<\/em> such a destination.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t quite know how it happened, but the pioneers of the adventure travel industry, sniffing the wind, had been\u00a0way ahead of the game, ensuring that the moment Iran became \u2018safe\u2019 \u2013 as it has this year, according to the ever-reliable FCO travel advice page<\/a> \u2013 there was an offer on the table. Indeed, I remember suggesting Iran to one particular operator after returning from the Karun<\/em> trip. Their first expedition to the country departed last month.<\/p>\n

And the mainstream is catching up. Only last week there was a travel industry event in London on the topic of exploiting Iran\u2019s potential as a destination. Wanderlust\u2019s latest issue features a lengthy piece on Iran. An editor I spoke to at a travel publishing house is working through a dozen book proposals set in the country.<\/p>\n

And every major broadsheet (or former broadsheet) in the UK has published, during 2015, at least one lengthy feature on Iran as the next big travel destination. Witness correspondents from The Times<\/a>, The Telegraph<\/a>, The Guardian<\/a> and The Independent<\/a> all attempting to be seen as breaking new ground by visiting a 6,000-year-old civilization. (OK, Chris used to live there, but you know what I mean.)<\/p>\n

Even the Daily Mail has followed suit (obviously this link<\/a> implies no endorsement), which is, as we all know, the best possible measure of mainstream British sentiment there is.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of it is undoubtedly what the media have cast as a \u2018thawing of relations\u2019 between Iran and the West. The widely-propagated narrative has been one in which the mardy mullahs, having suffered for years under sanctions imposed by austere Western diplomats, finally decide to sit down over a glass of chay<\/em> and come to a compromise over the small question of nuclear weapons (which, as we all know, only Western powers have ever been trustworthy enough keep pointed at their neighbours). Another righteous victory for the West; this time, somewhat surprisingly, without resorting to bombing the shit out of another Middle Eastern nation.<\/p>\n

I digress. The point is that, by the time our film<\/a> was released, Iran\u2019s image had already softened.<\/p>\n

And several things happened upon the prospect of such a historic kiss-and-make-up between Rouhani and Obama. One was that rich businessmen immediately jumped in their private jets<\/a> and flew to Tehran in order to see how they might profit from the imminent opening-up of yet another new market. Another was that travellers (and travel journalists) started wondering whether imminent political reconciliation meant that it was suddenly viable to travel to Iran.<\/p>\n

Putting aside the questionable logic of two presidents \u2018phoning each other<\/a> having the slightest impact upon the likelihood of being obliterated while taking a selfie outside the gates of Persepolis (which tourists have been continuing to do uninterrupted for centuries), it is wonderful that Iran has started to become \u2018a destination\u2019 in the minds of more of us.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

And Karun<\/a><\/em> will no doubt feed into this mood-swing in favour of revisiting our long-lost Persian friends.<\/p>\n

This is all part of a bigger story, of course, which is that of Iran\u2019s imminent reintegration into global society; a story that goes beyond the remits of newspaper travel sections, all-too-often so sickeningly colonial in tone; and of international affairs correspondents whose agenda is set solely in terms of the nuclear\u00a0narrative. And this bigger story is one I\u2019m much closer to, given that I\u2019m married to a native Tehrani.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, the opening-up of Iran has bugger all to do with Western tourists\u00a0and\u00a0the non-existent nuclear weapons programme; and everything to do with the lifting of pressure from the shoulders of ordinary Iranians \u2013 pressure which, I hardly need add, has been put there deliberately by foreign powers (including our own government) as a way of blackmailing Iran\u2019s politicians to bend the knee Westwards.<\/p>\n

When it costs you a tenner to send a single Christmas card abroad; when you\u2019re afraid to take a domestic flight because you know the plane manufacturer isn\u2019t allowed to sell you spare parts; when you can never take a foreign holiday because the money you earn is worthless and every visa application you make is rejected without explanation anyway \u2013 that\u2019s what our politicians have been inflicting upon my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, their extended family, my friends in the country, and 80 million other ordinary Iranians, for years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s these pressures that I can\u2019t wait to see lifted. It\u2019s for the sake of people close to me and those I can identify with. I honestly don\u2019t care if it means that I won\u2019t be able to travel comfortably in Iran on \u00a350 a week because the rial is stronger, or that everyone I meet on the street doesn\u2019t immediately drag me \u2013 no longer the first Brit they\u2019ve met in years \u2013 back to their home for tea\/kebab\/stay the night\/stay another night\/marry my daughter.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Altogether, there\u2019s little doubt that the seed now planted \u2013 barring something major happening to turn the tables once again \u2013 will see ever increasing numbers of travellers to the Islamic Republic, particularly when the visa regime is loosened, as it inevitably will be (by the way, you\u2019ll need to ask The Visa Machine, not me, for the latest news on this).<\/p>\n

Of course, with the territory comes\u00a0the Smug Traveller with something new to brag about \u2013 \u201cReally? Well, when I<\/em> was travelling in Iran\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And the equally irritating Superior Traveller \u2013 \u201cYeah, Iran\u2019s so popular now\u2026 such a shame\u2026\u201d \u2013 a sigh, a wistful gaze into the middle distance as memories of when Iran was actually worth visiting<\/em> come flooding back. (Diddums.)<\/p>\n

Yes, things are going to change. Iranians are going to become accustomed to increasing numbers of tourists appearing on their streets, at their historical sites, in their hotels and restaurants. The rial will strengthen, and the cost of travel to the foreigner\u00a0will increase from embarrassingly\u00a0cheap to something approaching respectable. And the novelty of being a foreigner in Iran is likely to become a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

But you know what? That is the way forward. The day we can travel anywhere on Earth, be momentarily intrigued by those minor cultural\u00a0differences that breathe fresh air into our experience of life, and then look our fellow humans in the eye and know that we are more or less the same, rather than being aliens to each other; that we share equally the planet we wander, rather than one of us being born free and rich and the other not \u2013 that is the day we will have achieved something of which today\u2019s patterns of travel are just an embryonic smudge.<\/p>\n

In any case, come 2016, somewhere else will be populating the newspapers\u2019 travel sections as the Next Big Thing\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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