North Korea Travel Guide: Exploring Pyongyang’s Real Streets & Hidden Gems in Live Footage

Every single one of these captivating photos was captured by my father during his extraordinary 2018 journey to North Korea—100% authentic and unfiltered!

Our adventure was supposed to be a father-daughter trip, but fate had other plans. A torrential downpour in Shanghai grounded our flight to Shenyang, leaving me stranded while my determined dad raced ahead solo to catch the North Korean tour group. The cost? A heartbreaking few thousand yuan down the drain—talk about travel woes!

Stepping into North Korea 🇰🇵 feels like entering a digital blackout zone—no signals, no international roaming, complete radio silence. For seven long days, my dad vanished from our radar completely. During my trip research, I discovered a curious loophole: near the tense 38th parallel, adventurous travelers might snatch a fleeting South Korean signal for a quick social media update before disappearing back into the void.

Even the mighty Baidu surrenders here—404 errors galore [hilarious, right?].

Dad described Pyongyang as a mesmerizing time capsule—nostalgic 1970s-80s China vibes blended with surprising modern touches. Sleek smartphones peeked from pockets, our guide crushed candies on his phone, and contemporary fashion dotted the streets. This isn’t the technologically-starved nation many imagine!

Here’s the photo protocol: every snapshot gets the official seal of approval. Guides meticulously review your camera roll, deleting anything deemed unsuitable. But tech-savvy dad outsmarted them—those “deleted” photos? Safely resurrected from his phone’s secret recycle bin! [Genius move, dad!]

Shopping becomes a carefully choreographed performance. You’ll only browse at government-approved stores—foreign currency collection points guarded like national treasures. While daring tourists have occasionally slipped the leash, the consequences? Let’s just say you don’t want to find out.

Road construction reveals another time warp—teams of workers laboriously lay asphalt by hand, their rhythmic movements unchanged for decades. Who knows what modernization may have arrived in these past six years?

For Chinese travelers, visiting comes with a sweet perk: no visa stamps, no passport traces—just pure, unrecorded adventure.

North Korea remains one of the world’s most fascinating mysteries for us Chinese. Hungry for more? Stay tuned—my next post will take you deep into the astonishing depths of the Pyongyang Metro system!