If I wanted to visit North Korea, where would I begin?

There’s information available via Google @Jeruba. For instance, this site provides information about visiting North Korea. It looks to be out-of-date, but it includes the names of three people who used to organise tourist trips. If I were you, I would Google their names and check for them on LinkedIn and then I’d email them or phone them to talk about organising such a trip now.

There are a couple of tour groups too. This one has information about visiting North Korea, but again, has an email address so you could write to them to find out if they can recommend anyone in the US who might be able to provide information for US travellers.

Similarly, this is an Australian site. They would be able to provide information and could perhaps put you in touch with someone reliable in your own country.

It depends on whether you really want to visit North Korea, or are more information about the process as a writer. Either way, the people connected to these sites would be good places to start.

Why would you want to go to north Korea in such a hostile environment? Is there any specific reason for that? Just curious…

I would start here The US State Department seems to think going to NK is not a good idea.

Generally, tours run out of Hong Kong or Beijing.

I would suggest that you start by reading the accounts of people who have been there (legally, safely) and returned safely. Here is one that seems to be entertaining and somewhat informative. It was one of the first hits in my search for “accounts of tours to north korea”.

I was “in NK” in the late 90’s. I visited the room and table‘m%20standing%20in%20North%20Korea%20to%20take%20the%20photo.jpg in Panmunjom that crosses the border. The armistice was signed there in 1953.

(Arrgh. I can’t get the link to work. Here is another)

I went with a small group while staying in Seoul. A bus drives you in on a road surrounded by landmines. We were all told to dress respectfully and smile as our every move will be monitored. Sure enough there were NK soldiers watching and taking pictures of us through the windows – not unlike visitors at Seaworld Aquarium. I have some pictures of them as well. The NK soldiers were big, in great shape, and well fed while the country was going through one of the country’s worst periods of starvation. Their robust appearance supposedly gives us the impression that the country is prosperous. However, satellite imagery proves that is false.

There is no way i would be foolish enough to visit that place escorted – or even escorted. Visit South Korea. You would really enjoy that.

Why North Korea’s Arrest Of An American College Student Should Come As No Surprise http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/56a25b29e4b076aadcc659a9

Some good ways in this article.
They have been deemed unsuccessful so far…but you’ll see a side of NK most don’t.

Young Pioneer Tours is Chinese company that arranges guided tours of North Korea. This is the company that Mr Warmbier used. Everyone else on the tour seemed to make it back OK so I suspect he did something stupid.

This is the British advice on travel to NK ‘Very few British nationals visit North Korea and those that do are usually part of an organised tour. Most visits are trouble-free. However, the North Korean authorities have arrested other legal visitors, including 3 US citizens during recent years.’

I don’t know if I really would, but I think about it. Let’s call it hypothetical.

I have read numerous books and articles about North Korea, works of research, escapees’ narratives, and accounts of visitors, including that of one person who managed to evade detection as an undercover reporter while teaching in an elite technical school. I’ve also seen documentaries, and I follow the news. I’ve read a couple of fictional works, too, that are based on actual conditions.

All these accounts are different, but they all add something. Even if I believed only one-tenth of it, it would be deeply chilling.

My position is that we’re not nearly scared enough of North Korea and what it can do.

I don’t believe that I would discover anything by seeing it for myself. I don’t believe that anything hidden would reveal itself to me. I just think it would be real in a way that nothing in a book can be real.

So I was wondering how you would find an organizer who really does, reliably, know what he or she is doing and not just what they say about themselves.

Ah, well. If you’d like an advanced primer on civil and military conditions inside the country collected by a reputable source; fact-based reporting on recent history (from about WWII to near-present) and military capability, and problems with the US-South Korea-North Korea-Japan-China-Russia alliances and rivalries, then I highly recommend Victor Cha’s The Invisible State: North Korea Past and Future.

Mr. Cha served in the GW Bush White House as Director for Asian Affairs at the NSC from 2004 to 2007. The book is highly readable, well documented and credible.

Have you ever been to Japan? They have mountains to sea shores, megalopolises (megalopoli?) to rural farm areas. Look at the quiet area in Chichibu.
No matter where you go, you can trust the people you see. Crime rate is virtually zero. There are no restrictions or areas where you may not wander. You are free to take photos or talk to anyone. You can arrange tours at most hotels or venture out with a friend by taking public transportation.
Korea, mmm… not so much.

@CWOTUS, that turns out to be The Impossible State, and I will read it, thank you.

Duh, yes. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe the word “Impossible” was invisible to me as I was reading the title from the cover of the book. Actually, I know part of the reason for this: I had just finished looking at a satellite photo of North Korea at night, when it truly is “invisible”. But still…

@Jeruba, you have never struck me as the sort of person who would fly off to North Korea without a great deal of consideration for the pros and cons. I thought you must be writing something and wanted background information. Why not see if you can talk to some of the people I identified. It would appear they would have first-hand information about North Korea and life there. It would be fascinating to have a conversation with one or two of them about their impressions. As you undoubtedly know, people are often very happy to talk about things they know.

I went to a conference last year and spoke to a journo who has been to North Korea. This man is no fool, and he wasn’t promoting North Korea as a holiday destination or suggesting there are no problems with North Korea, but he was talking about how the Western media often demonizes North Korea and North Koreans. It would be interesting to speak to people who have real life experience of life in that country. I was distracted when I spoke to this person as I was getting ready to present. In hindsight, I wish I’d been more focused on what he was saying.