The migratory strategies of the small-scale tourism entrepreneurs in two popular tourist destinations in India – Hampi and Dharamshala – blur the conceptual boundary between lifestyle (associated with priviledge) and economic migration as well as the dichotomy of the Global North and the Global South inscribed in a way in which we used to conceptualise these two forms of people’s mobility. Likewise, the dichotomy of tourism and migration, one of the lifestyle and economic motivations of those who move, is associated with the world’s division. Mobility motivated by the search for a “good life” – such as lifestyle migration (see e.g., Ateljevic, Doorne 2000; Fischer 2014) – is usually associated with the privileged citizens of the Global North, while migrants who originate from the Global South are imagined as homo economicus motivated mostly by better earning opportunities. As a result, the categories of lifestyle or good life become class notions. Meanwhile, many of the migrant small-scale entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in Hampi and Dharamshala, when asked about the reasons for choosing these particular locations for their businesses, pointed at the category of shanti (tranquility) which they referred to the sacred character of both sites (Hindu in the first case, and Buddhist in the second). The opportunity of doing business in a slow manner in a peaceful and beautiful place, inhabited by kind and non-greedy people was their way to combine work and leisure, another seemingly dichotomous categories. Often, they also engaged in tourist activities, performing VFR or accompanying tourists.
