Exclusive Glimpse: Rare North Korea Travel Insights & Photos from May 2019 Journey

In 2019, during my junior year, I made a life-changing decision to visit North Korea over the May Day holiday—a serendipitous choice made just before the world changed forever with the pandemic.

Here’s a heartfelt reflection I penned after this unforgettable journey:

My visit to North Korea during May Day remains one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life. That golden afternoon, after exploring the historic grounds of Panmunjom, our tour group boarded a bus back to Pyongyang, rumbling along a pothole-riddled rural highway—North Korea’s version of an expressway. While exhaustion lulled my fellow travelers to sleep, I remained wide-eyed, captivated by the endless stretches of farmland unfolding outside my window.

Then came a moment that would stay with me forever. As our bus rounded a bend, I spotted two children—no older than four or five—tending to a field, likely performing simple chores. When they noticed our approaching vehicle, their faces lit up with sudden delight. Springing to their feet, they began waving enthusiastically, their radiant smiles overflowing with pure innocence, boundless curiosity, and unspoken longing.

In my twenty-one years of existence, no expression had ever touched me so deeply. Though our bus raced past in a blur, that fleeting second of connection imprinted itself on my soul, replaying in my mind until tears blurred my vision. Would these bright-eyed children spend their entire lives bound to this same patch of earth?

Was their only glimpse of the wider world these occasional buses filled with foreign faces?

What struck me most was the poignant contrast between the country’s austere atmosphere and the children’s vibrant spirit. Before my visit, I’d subscribed to the common stereotype of North Koreans as pitiable figures—individuality suppressed under collective dogma, lives predetermined from cradle to grave within an unyielding system.

But after just two days immersed in their world, my perspective began to shift. Could there be unexpected happiness in such structured existence? No career anxieties, no existential doubts—just clear purpose in serving their nation. Meanwhile, in our information-saturated societies, we often drown in choice paralysis and vague personal aspirations.

Yet when I remember those two beaming children, I feel I witnessed their entire futures in that single glance—lives already mapped out without room for deviation, devoid of serendipity or self-determination. This realization breaks my heart. Every human being deserves the fundamental right to explore our world’s wonders, to shape their own values, and to encounter life’s beautiful unpredictability.

Those children’s sparkling eyes held so much potential—I can only hope they never lose that innate curiosity and hunger for life’s possibilities.