Welcome to North Korea, one of the worlds most secretive countries. A land where where time seems to stand still amidst a backdrop of breathtaking landscapes and rich cultural heritage. With each step, immerse yourself in a world unlike any other, where every moment offers a new perspective and a deeper understanding of this captivating nation.
Last updated on 20th March 2024.
We believe in the power of travel to challenge prejudices and stereotypes, particularly evident in North Korea. We advocate for increased cross-cultural interaction, recognising the mutual benefits. Just as many North Koreans have limited exposure to foreigners, few individuals outside the DPRK have had the opportunity to meet North Koreans. Over time, we aim to shift this imbalance, fostering greater understanding and connection. Since there are minimal restrictions on visiting the DPRK, various international bodies, including the United Nations and European Union, view tourism as a positive way of engagement.
Safety is our number one priority, and we take every step to ensure the well-being of all who choose to travel with us. We diligently provide essential information, briefings, and cautions regarding the unique risks associated with traveling to the DPRK, which demands thorough preparation.
There is a mandatory pre-tour briefing, where comprehensive briefings, expert guidance and our thorough understanding foster a secure and responsible tour environment for all participants.
When you enter the DPRK with us, you enter legally as a tourist, obliging adherence to local laws for the safety of yourself, the group and the guides that will accompany you. Upholding regulations is crucial to maintaining safety standards. It’s equally important that you are aware of your government’s travel advisories before booking, as many caution against non-essential travel. We take such warnings seriously, leveraging our frequent visits, extensive ground experience, and ongoing dialogues with Pyongyang partners, international representatives, and concerned agencies to conduct DPRK tours with up-to-date assessments and adaptability to situational changes.
Please be reminded that tourists are not allowed to travel around freely. At all times (except in the hotel) you will be accompanied by two local guides and a driver, regardless of how many people are in your group. Please remember this is a policy set by higher powers and there is no way round this. Any attempt to sneak off from the guides will have serious consequences for both you and the guides. It’s equally important for you to understand that actions deemed insignificant elsewhere can incur severe penalties in North Korea, particularly those perceived as disrespectful toward leadership, government, or religion. While rare, instances of detention have occurred, underscoring the importance of awareness and adherence to local laws.
Everyone needs a visa to visit the DPRK. Visa applications are made through our partners in Beijing, and cost 50€. We issue the visa in Beijing using your passport copy and photo. It is issued on a separate piece of paper and not stuck into your passport. If you live in a country that has a DPRK embassy then you have the option of getting the visa issued there, in which case it will be stuck into your passport.
If you are a journalist / photojournalist, entry to North Korea with a tourist visa is not allowed. Opportunities for travel journalists to visit DPRK may be available with prior arrangement; kindly reach out to us for assistance in organising your special permit. If you are a journalist / photojournalist, do not attempt to enter North Korea without clear authorisation. Additionally, all travellers are required to sign a form confirming their agreement not to publish any articles about the tours without our explicit consent, as mandated by DPRK regulations.
Unfortunately, due to legislation put in place by the US Government, we will no longer be able to take any US citizens travelling on an American passport to DPRK. This travel ban came into effect on 1 Sep 2017.
Cash is the most accepted form of payment.
The currency is the North Korean won (KPW) however, foreigners are expected to use EUR or, alternatively, RMB or USD.
Change in foreign currency is often unavailable, so bring small currency notes.
There are no ATMs.
There is no internet available in North Korea but you can make international calls and send postcards from the hotel. Call rates vary from 0.70€ to 6€ per minute, depending on the destination. Arrangements can be made for relatives or friends to contact you at your hotel.
If you enter the DPRK by plane, you’ll have the option to purchase a Koryolink SIM card at Pyongyang Airport, enabling you to make international calls. Calls to South Korea are not permitted. While travellers can bring their mobile phones into North Korea, they won’t be usable due to the lack of roaming network. Satellite phones are strictly forbidden.
As a visitor and guest in the DPRK, you’ll enjoy three meals daily, complete with meat and fish. Hospitality is paramount in Korean culture, often leading to generous portions. While the food may not always be amazing, it generally satisfies. Vegetarian options are available, though we cannot guarantee utensils haven’t touched meat or cooking oil doesn’t contain animal fats. For vegan requirements, please inform us in advance. It’s worth noting that fruits and chocolates are very limited in North Korea, so bringing your own from Beijing may be advisable.
Pyongyang is known for its Four Famous Foods: Cold noodles (raengmyon), green bean pancakes, Teadong River mullet fish soup and onban, a chicken and rice dish in soup topped with a green bean pancake. Pyongyang also has a wide-range of specialty dining options, coffee shops, and bars for those willing to pay on the spot. Prices are reasonable compared to dining around the world.
Pyongyang has a hospital specifically for foreigners, known for its superior quality compared to other medical facilities in the country. Should you require medical attention beyond basic care, you’ll be referred to this facility. Please note that while we cannot assume responsibility for medical expenses, we mandate that all our tourists carry adequate medical insurance (our travel insurance with IATI in compliant with the DPRK requirements). We advise our travellers to carry a basic first aid kit containing painkillers, anti-diarrhoea medication, etc., as these items may not be available in the country.
The rainy season, also known as the monsoon season, spans from late June to August, with typhoons typically occurring in August and September. Heavy rainstorms during this time can lead to flooding, landslides and disruptions to essential services. North Korea is also susceptible to drought.
Most common transportation in the DPRK is private cars or buses. To come in and out of the DPRK, you can choose between flights and trains. Trains from Beijing take approximately 24h to reach Pyongyang. Most of the journey takes place between Beijing and Dandong, on the Chinese border, so whether you’re going in or coming out, this part happens during the evening. We recommend using this time to rest well in the sleeper beds provided to you. The berth is known as a “hard-sleeper”, consisting of six beds per cabin. But don’t let the name fool you, as the beds have padding, a pillow and a blanket. It is possible to upgrade to “soft sleepers” (four beds in a cabin), please reach out to us if you would like to do so. A dining cart is included on the train where hot meals can be purchased and we highly recommend the North Korean dining cart. Bringing your own snacks and drinks onto the train is recommended, but bear in mind there is hot water available to make instant noodles, coffee or tea.
Once arriving in Dandong or Sinuiju – the North Korean border town city, your local guide will assist you with both Chinese and North Korean immigration. The process is very simple and quite relaxed. Our tour leader also has experience with the immigration process on both sides of the border, and will be there to help make the process a lot easier and quicker.
To take the train in and out you will require a Chinese double-entry visa sticker in your passport before arriving into China.
Travelling to the DPRK requires a strict conduct of behaviour. The main concerns are: abiding by the photographic restrictions; remaining with the guides at all times outside the hotel grounds; and when visiting statues of the DPRK’s leaders, a respectful bow is expected by visitors, and occasionally flowers may be asked to be presented (this is all more a question of not showing disrespect than of showing respect).
Kindly honour the guides’ preferences and refrain from criticising the North Korean regime. While constructive debate is welcomed, harsh criticism is unlikely to alter their perspectives and may result in deportation.
If you wish to offer gifts to your guides at the tour’s onset (such gesture can help build a good relationship from the start!), we suggest Marlboro cigarettes or alcohol for male guides, and cosmetics, perfume, chocolates, etc., for female guides.
You are free to dress in casual clothes at all times except for visits to the mausoleum. At this time males should wear trousers, collared shirt and tie. Females should be dressed smartly with arms and legs covered.
There are lots of things you can learn about a country through its literature, music, cinema or any other art. Here are some suggestions:
Before becoming the world’s most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea’s Ministry for Propaganda and all its film studios. Underwhelmed by the pool of talent available to him he took drastic steps, ordering the kidnap of Choi Eun-Hee (Madame Choi) – South Korea’s most famous actress – and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country’s most famous filmmaker. But as Madame Choi and Shin Shang-Ok begin to make North Korea’s greatest films, they hatch a plan of escape worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood ending. A Kim Jong-Il Production is that rarest of books: a wildly entertaining, cunningly told story that offers a rare glimpse into a nation still wrapped in mystery.
In August 2015, Laibach performed in the secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Tho historic concerts took place in the Main Hall of the Kim Won Gyun Music Conservatory in the capital Pyongyang on August 19 and 20, seating up to 1000 per show.
Laibach’s Liberation Day Tour coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonisation and subsequent division into two enemy states.
The concerts were also the subject of a documentary film Liberation Day.
The behind-the-scenes story of the rise and reign of the world’s strangest and most elusive tyrant, Kim Jong Un, by the journalist with the best connections and insights into the bizarrely dangerous world of North Korea.
Since his birth in 1984, Kim Jong Un has been swaddled in myth and propaganda, from the plainly silly — he could supposedly drive a car at the age of three — to the grimly bloody stories of family members who perished at his command.
Anna Fifield reconstructs Kim’s past and present with exclusive access to sources near him and brings her unique understanding to explain the dynastic mission of the Kim family in North Korea. The archaic notion of despotic family rule matches the almost medieval hardship the country has suffered under the Kims. Few people thought that a young, untested, unhealthy, Swiss-educated basketball fanatic could hold together a country that should have fallen apart years ago. But Kim Jong Un has not just survived, he has thrived, abetted by the approval of Donald Trump and diplomacy’s weirdest bromance.
Skeptical yet insightful, Fifield creates a captivating portrait of the oddest and most secretive political regime in the world — one that is isolated yet internationally relevant, bankrupt yet in possession of nuclear weapons — and its ruler, the self-proclaimed Beloved and Respected Leader, Kim Jong Un.
Examining the mind of Kim Jong Un, we explore the unpredictable leader as he forges a future for his country while maintaining control of its people.
An intimate archive takes us inside the Kim family including his ascendant sister, and with an exclusive interview with a duped assassin we learn how Kim arranged the assassination of his half-brother in an audacious airport attack.
In See You Again in Pyongyang, Travis Jeppesen, the first American to complete a university program in North Korea, culls from his experiences living, traveling, and studying in the country to create a multifaceted portrait of the country and its idiosyncratic capital city in the Kim Jong Un Era.
Anchored by the experience of his five trips to North Korea and his interactions with citizens from all walks of life, Jeppesen takes readers behind the propaganda, showing how the North Korean system actually works in daily life. He challenges the notion that Pyongyang is merely a “showcase capital” where everything is staged for the benefit of foreigners, as well as the idea that Pyongyangites are brainwashed robots. Jeppesen introduces readers to an array of fascinating North Koreans, from government ministers with a side hustle in black market Western products to young people enamored with American pop culture.
With unique personal insight and a rigorous historical grounding, Jeppesen goes beyond the media cliches, showing North Koreans in their full complexity. See You Again in Pyongyang is an essential addition to the literature about one of the world’s most fascinating and mysterious places.
VICE makes history on a trip to North Korea to play hoops and meet with supreme leader Kim Jong-un.
With NBA great Dennis Rodman and a trio of Harlem Globetrotters in tow, VICE sent Ryan Duffy to the capital of Pyongyang for a tour of the city, a basketball clinic, an exhibition game, and a first-ever meeting between the leader and an American delegation.
Em abril de 2012, José Luís Peixoto foi um espectador privilegiado nas exuberantes comemorações do centenário do nascimento de Kim Il-sung, em Pyongyang, na Coreia do Norte. Também nessa ocasião, participou na viagem mais extensa e longa que o governo norte-coreano autorizou nos últimos anos, tendo passado por todos os pontos simbólicos do país e do regime, mas também por algumas cidades e lugares que não recebiam visitantes estrangeiros há mais de sessenta anos.
A surpreendente estreia de José Luís Peixoto na literatura de viagens levou-nos através de um olhar inédito e fascinante ao quotidiano da sociedade mais fechada do mundo. Repleto de episódios memoráveis, num tom pessoal que chega a transcender o próprio género, Dentro do Segredo é um relato sobre o outro que, ao mesmo tempo, inevitavelmente, revela muito sobre nós próprios.
Dez anos depois, esta é uma edição que mostra ainda mais desse país submetido à ditadura mais repressiva do mundo, um país coberto por absoluto isolamento, através de fotografias inéditas capturadas pela lente do autor, e que mostram aspetos da vida quotidiana da Coreia do Norte, das suas paisagens e do seu povo.
