A local man was supposed to be in Pakistan for a month, but says his trip was cut down to three weeks due to "threats of violence."
Experts say current conflict between India and Pakistan has not been this intense in more than 25 years.
However, Egan Schellenberg says he didn't notice tensions until recently.
"I guess it would have been Tuesday or Wednesday, I was actually in the Kalash Valley region without any cell service—my SIM card wasn't working," he says. "There was one other foreigner there that had cell service, so he was checking the news and we woke up at one in the morning to the news of the attacks."
According to a report by the Canadian Press, India launched missile strikes into Pakistani-administered areas earlier this week, which killed 31 people.
While Schellenberg says he wasn't close to the strikes so didn't necessarily feel unsafe, when he was told airspace had been closed, some panic kicked in.
"I wasn't sure if I would be able to get out when I planned to," he says, noting he had a flight booked for May 14. "But then, pretty quickly, the airspace opened up again from certain places, and flights started not getting cancelled as much."
"But, it was still a little bit scary, like how it could escalate? Am I going to be able to leave the country? Am I stuck here? Things like that," Schellenberg says.
He says he boarded a bus to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and went to the airport to book a flight. Now, he is in Dubai.
Despite the experience being cut short for safety reasons, he says one of the things he actually found incredible—other than the gorgeous landscape—was the effort locals made to care for foreigners and show them the country.
"Travelling through certain regions you will get a police escort for your own safety. Maybe nothing is going to happen," he says, sharing an account of a police officer that slept in the lobby of a place his travel group stayed.
"He was like, 'I'm just here for the night to protect you in case anything happens.'"
Overall, Schellenberg says he didn't feel unsafe, though now fears for the friends and families he met along his journey—some of whom he is still in touch with.
"It's really hard to see them go through a hard time. War, or even the beginnings of one, is very scary," he says, adding he knows people on both sides of the conflict.
"We're all human, right? I think that's just a good reminder that, whatever the governments are doing, there's amazing people on both sides and in both countries," he says.
Written with files from Kenton Dyck
Photos from Egan Schellenberg's travels (submitted by Egan Schellenberg):