Pyongyang may not be your typical 'weekend away' destination, but should you find yourself in the North Korean capital there are plenty of attractions and experiences to keep you busy. Since you are not free to travel around independently you will need to plan a schedule in advance for yourself, your guides and driver.
Pyongyang is small city, easy to get around, and has very little traffic or pollution. An ideal place to wander the streets, look at local students marching in uniform and very much in step while having a look into the small shops dotted around. Except that you are not allowed to. Each group of tourists had a set of guides/minders and a driver and a set program which is hard to deviate from.
North Korea. AKA 'The Hermit Kingdom', or more recently 'The land of ICBMs'. An unusual travel destination, and also one becoming increasingly difficult to visit, particularly if you are an American. I had planned this trip months in advance, but as my departure day got closer the rhetoric between Trump and Kim reached new levels of abuse, with threats thrown from both sides, and there were murmurings of preemptive strikes on the country. I guessed international diplomacy might cool the hot heads, and if not it could be an even more interesting experience.
We are just back from a trip to North Korea. What with missile testing on the one hand, and promises of "fire and fury" on the other it was, to put it mildly, an interesting time to visit. More entries on North Korea will be added here over time, although the priority is to write more detailed stories for the next Far Flung Places book coming out late 2017. In the meantime, here are a selection of propaganda posters from the country.