How To Travel To North Korea

Quite a few of my friends were shocked to discover I was travelling to North Korea. “I didn’t even know you could go to North Korea, let alone join a tour group!” they exclaimed.

Yup, against common belief, it is possible to travel to North Korea. And it’s actually surprisingly easy.

Almost anyone can visit North Korea, with the exception of citizens of South Korea and the United States. It was only recently (September 2019) that the US government banned its citizens from travelling to North Korea, and this may be reversed in time now that Donald Trump is out of office.

In this blog post, I’ll walk you through how to travel to North Korea as a tourist, explaining everything you need to know about tours, visas and travelling into the country itself.

How to travel to North Korea

There are three things you’ll need to organise in order to travel to North Korea: an inclusive tour, your visas and a flight to China.

1) Book onto a tour

To visit North Korea, you must book onto a tour group. You cannot visit North Korea independently as the country’s government simply doesn’t allow this. Any visit to North Korea will be an all-inclusive tour with an organized itinerary – there is no getting around this.

There are a few tour operators who run trips in North Korea, and these are Lupine Travel, Young Pioneers and Koryo Group. I personally went with Lupine Travel, although it seems as though the three companies are all fairly similar.

Once you choose the tour you want to go on and have booked it, the tour operator will take care of a lot of the logistics for you.

The tour operator will take of:

• Your return transport into North Korea from China
• Your North Korean visa
• Your accommodation, food and itinerary in North Korea

The tour company probably will not take care of:

• Your return flight to China from your home country
• Your Chinese visa (although they will help you with this)

Once you’re booked onto a tour, the company will liaise with you prior to your trip, ensuring they have everything they need from you and that you have everything ready, as well. (Shout out to James from Lupine Travel who kindly answered all of my many questions).

2) Get your North Korean and Chinese visas

There are very few places from where you can enter North Korea – you can’t simply book a flight from London to Pyongyang!

You will most likely need to go through China, which shares a border with North Korea.

My tour with Lupine Travel started in Beijing and ended in Dandong, another Chinese city. This meant I required a Dual Entry Chinese Visa, as well as a North Korean tourist visa.

The tour company you booked with will handle your North Korean tourist visa for you. All you’ll need to do is fill in a few simple forms and send over a scanned copy of your passport. Your guide will then give you your North Korean visa once you meet up with your tour group.

The Chinese visa can be a little bit trickier. I’ve applied for and received 2 Chinese visas in the last decade, and they were a bit of a hassle on both occasions. There are a lot of forms to fill out and it can get complicated. Be sure to read through the documents carefully and answer everything truthfully.

For your Chinese visa, you will need:

• Your passport: with a remaining validity of at least 6 months and with blank visa pages.
• Visa Application Form: truthfully completed and type-written.
• A photo: taken within the last six months; full face against a light background; size: 48mm x 33mm; bare-headed unless for religious reasons.

You can visit a Chinese embassy or Chinese Visa Application Centre to hand in your documents, or you can mail it. It typically takes four working days to process your application, but it’s recommended that you apply about 2 months before, as there can be issues. They rejected my photo on one occasion and I had to resubmit it, for example.

Once approved and processed, you can go and collect your passport and visa. The fee for a Chinese visa is £150 / $140.

3) Book your flights to China

As your tour to North Korea likely starts in China, you’ll need to book flights or some other form of transport to China, as this is probably not included in your tour package. Check which city your tour’s meeting place is – mine met at the train station in Beijing, but some meet in the city of Dandong, which is on the border of China and North Korea.

Flights from Europe start from about £500. You can search for cheap flights on Skyscanner.

Travelling into North Korea from China

As mentioned above, your tour company should take care of the logistics of your transport into and out of North Korea from China. You’ll most likely meet your tour group in Beijing or Dandong, and then travel with them from there into North Korea, either by train or plane. It depends on the tour company you go with as to whether you’ll go by train or plane.

The train

The sleeper train departs Beijing in the late afternoon and goes through Northeast China overnight, before reaching the border at around midday.

Once at the border, North Korean soldiers will come onboard to do visa, passport and luggage checks. I found the experience quite intimidating; they poked around in my backpack and asked me to explain what some things were. I remember a fellow traveller on my tour awkwardly explaining what his beard trimmer was used for.

You will also be given forms asking you to declare electronic devices that you’re bringing into the country. I’d advise that you don’t bring any devices with you if possible – you won’t be able to use the internet or make phone calls anyway, and you may be asked to open it up and show the soldiers your files.

Be certain that you do not have religious material, pornography, or memes/other insulting material about North Korea on your device.

It can take a few hours to cross the North Korea entry customs. Once through, you’ll spend about 5 hours travelling through the scenic North Korean countryside before arriving in Pyongyang.

The plane

Another way to enter North Korea from China is to take an aeroplane, which is much quicker than the train but certainly less scenic. Air Koryo runs three to four flights from Beijing to Pyongyang each week, as well as weekly flights from Shanghai, Shenyang and Dandong.

I took the train myself, so I don’t have first-hand insight into what the plane is like. But apparently, you’re welcomed on board with songs about socialism and Kim Jong-un, as well as magazines that showcase the ‘fatherly leader’ and the heinous war crimes of Japan and the US.

Further North Korea reading:

• Read about my personal experience in North Korea
• Check out my North Korea travel guide
• Is it ethical to visit North Korea?

Thank you for reading!

If you found this post useful, I’d be grateful if you would consider using the affiliate links below when planning your travels. I’ll make a small commission at no extra cost to you. This will help me to keep this blog running . Thanks for your support – Lauren.

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