For most of its post-war history, North Korea operated a tightly controlled but functional tourism industry for foreign visitors. Western tourists travelled primarily through specialist agencies — most famously, the Beijing-based Young Pioneer Tours — on strictly supervised group itineraries covering Pyongyang, the DMZ, and approved provincial sites. At its peak in the mid-2010s, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 foreign visitors entered the country annually, the vast majority of them Chinese.
That system ended abruptly in January 2020, when the DPRK became one of the first countries in the world to completely close its borders in response to COVID-19 — even before the WHO had declared a pandemic. The country sealed itself off with a thoroughness that went beyond any standard public health response: foreign diplomats were sequestered, foreign NGOs were expelled, and even the limited cross-border trade with China was suspended for extended periods.
The Reopening Timeline
Signals that North Korea intended to selectively reopen began emerging in late 2023 and accelerated through 2024. Russian tourists returned first: in July 2024, a tour group of Russian nationals became the first foreign tourists to visit the DPRK in over four years, operating on a bilateral arrangement between Pyongyang and Moscow that reflected the increasingly close relationship between the two governments following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
This reopening was specific and intentional — Russian tourists, Chinese tourists via a separate bilateral channel, and a trickle of visitors from other countries with which North Korea maintains relatively functional diplomatic relations. Critically, the path has remained closed for citizens of the United States, South Korea, and most Western nations, at least through the information available at the time of writing.
The South Korea–North Korea border remains among the most heavily militarised in the world, with no civilian crossings in either direction.
What Tourism in North Korea Actually Looks Like
For travellers who are eligible and willing to navigate the significant logistical and ethical complexity of visiting the DPRK, the tourism experience is unlike anything available elsewhere in the world — for reasons both extraordinary and troubling.
All tourists travel with mandatory government-assigned guides (typically two per group). Itineraries are fixed and pre-approved: in Pyongyang, this typically includes the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun (mausoleum of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il), the Arirang Mass Games (when in season) — a choreographed stadium performance involving tens of thousands of participants that is arguably the largest performance art event in the world — the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, and various monuments, schools, and model residential buildings selected to present the country in its most favourable light.
Photography is permitted in approved locations and prohibited in others; the rules are enforced by guides, and accidental violations are generally handled through confiscation rather than detention, though visitors should behave with extreme caution and respect at all times. Every aspect of the visit — transport, accommodation, meals, guide interaction — is managed by the state tourism authority. Independent movement is not possible.
Should You Go?
Visiting North Korea raises genuine ethical questions that no travel guide can resolve on behalf of a prospective visitor. Tourism revenue flows to the North Korean state. Visitors are, to varying degrees, participants in a tightly controlled performance intended to project legitimacy. At the same time, many former visitors report that genuine human contact — conversations with guides, encounters with residents at approved sites — provides experiences and insights not available through any other channel.
The practical guidance is straightforward: check your government's current travel advisory, verify whether citizens of your country are currently being admitted, use only established agencies with long operational track records in DPRK tourism, and do not carry any materials (books, articles, electronic devices with cached content) that could be interpreted as critical of the government. The detention of Otto Warmbier in 2016 — an American student who died following his imprisonment — remains the starkest reminder of the catastrophic consequences that rule violations can carry.