North Korea Is Open. Who’s Going? Apparently Everyone!

The first Western tourists are trickling back into the totalitarian Kim Jong Un regime—and splurging on propaganda. North Korea Is Open. Who’s Going? Apparently Everyone!

SEOUL—Wendy Arbeit had an unusual vacation announcement during a recent talk with her boss at the University of California school system. “I’m going to North Korea!” the 47-year-old said.

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Weeks later, Arbeit found herself in a restaurant at the “Namsan Hotel,” where a Budweiser refrigerator case sat in the corner. She hoisted a North Korean flag in each hand and posed in front of a celebratory cake. “Congratulations,” it read in Korean. “195 Countries.”

She had visited every nation on Earth—except one. In recent days, Arbeit, a dual U.S.-German national, notched her final destination after North Korea dropped Covid-era restrictions that had blocked Western tourism since January 2020.

“I’ve been waiting for North Korea for five years,” Arbeit says. “The experience was good enough that I would go back.”

The first Western tourists are trickling back into the totalitarian Kim Jong Un regime. They’re goal-oriented globetrotters, North Korea nerds and YouTubers willing to drop everything to visit one of the world’s most recalcitrant—and potentially dangerous—places.

The vacationers saw North Korean singing schoolchildren tout Kim as the “very best in the world” as a large screen showed animated missiles rain from the skies.

Itineraries included demonstrations of traditional bean cake making, visits to a beer brewery and dining on cold buckwheat noodles, kimchi and even flaming snails.

Some Korean-speaking visitors belted out Kim regime propaganda tunes at a local karaoke bar, where the top shelf had bottles of Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s. Smartphones were everywhere.

With just days of advance notice, a pair of tour groups brought roughly two dozen Western visitors to North Korea’s Rason special economic zone, near the Chinese and Russian borders.

Their five-day trip ended Feb. 24. Nearly all flew into Beijing, before making their way to another Chinese city and entering North Korea.

Mike O’Kennedy, a 28-year-old YouTuber with a British passport, says he felt a mixture of excitement and nervousness throughout the trip.

His unease peaked at the “Friendship House,” which celebrates relations between North Korea and Russia. Local tour guides asked if he would sign the visitors’ guest book.

Pen in hand, O’Kennedy recalled his mind going blank, so he wrote something he thought a child might scribble on a holiday card: “I wish peace to the world.”

The inscription caused the North Koreans to freeze. “Do you think this is an appropriate thing to write?” one asked.

O’Kennedy offered an apology. A few silent seconds passed. Eventually, O’Kennedy shuffled out of the Friendship House and reached for cigarettes. He received no reprimand.

“Looking back,” O’Kennedy says, “it probably was a stupid thing to write.”

Before the pandemic, North Korea welcomed around 350,000 foreign travelers in 2019—some 90% of them Chinese, according to some independent estimates.

A year ago, North Korea began accepting Russian tourist groups. But access didn’t widen until February.

The State Department since 2017 has banned U.S. citizens from entering North Korea. But dual-passport holders aren’t blocked from traveling there.

Nicolas Pasquali, a 32-year-old with Italian and Argentinian passports, also needed North Korea to finish his quest to visit all countries.

Pasquali said he had visited at least 20 nations engaged in war, been kidnapped by a terrorist group in Mauritania and stood accused of espionage in Iraq.

By those comparisons, Pasquali says, North Korea felt comfortable. “I felt very safe, very good.”

Grabbing a karaoke-machine mic at a North Korean bar, Benjamin Weston, who led the Koryo Tours group in Rason, couldn’t choose any Western songs.

They weren’t available. So, Weston, a dual U.K.-New Zealand citizen who speaks Korean, opted for “Don’t Advance, Night of Pyongyang,” a soulful ballad.

Mid-song, Weston noticed North Korean locals had begun recording him with their smartphones. “At which point it was a bit nerve-racking,” he says.

Kayl Grau, 21, a college student studying computer science, says one of the North Korean tour guides demonstrated how she honed her English.

She pulled up clips from Disney films on her smartphone, singing lines of “Let It Go” from the film “Frozen.”

Grau and other travelers visited a middle school, where they spoke English with some North Korean students. One asked Grau where he is from, and he said Australia.

North Korea Is Open. Who’s Going? Apparently Everyone!

“I would really like to visit Australia,” the girl responded, “but I’m really sad because I won’t be able to.”

Updated: 8-1-2025

Inside Kim Jong Un’s New Beach Resort, Where the Only Foreigners Are Russian

First outsiders met with free jet-ski rides, an abundance of food and a $465 model of the Hwasong-17 missile.

At North Korea’s new beach resort, the white sand glistened against the crystal-clear waters. Ten minutes of Wi-Fi cost $1.70. Food arrived in abundance, albeit with the same three beverage choices: water, tea or beer.

The weeklong trip cost roughly $2,000. The catch? All travelers had to be Russian.

Welcome to North Korea’s Wonsan Kalma coastal complex, a megaresort built by the regime to portray the country as modern and affluent.

It is opening to foreign vacationers for the first time, as part of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s drive to attract more tourism to his cash-strapped country and show his people they can experience some of the finer things in life despite international sanctions.

Anastasia Samsonova, a 33-year-old from Moscow, was looking for something offbeat for her summer vacation. Having never been to North Korea, she chose a group tour that would spend several days in Pyongyang before arriving in Wonsan.

But as she took her first steps on the sand, Samsonova—who, along with 12 other Russians, was part of the first group of foreign vacationers allowed to visit the resort several weeks ago—faced an unsettling sight.

“The entire beach was empty,” she said. “In fact, we seemed to be the only guests in the entire resort.”

One upside: The lack of fellow travelers meant the service was excellent, said Samsonova, a human-resources specialist. When the group asked for porridge and brioche buns, staff quickly produced them.

Portable music speakers were hand-delivered on the beach upon request. Patio chairs for the balcony came instantly.

“We really felt like the most important people on Earth,” said Samsonova. She went home with a souvenir statuette shaped like a nuclear warhead.

Kim’s Beach Stroll

North Korea once welcomed hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists a year—mostly from China—before slamming its borders shut in January 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The country reopened to tourism in February 2024 exclusively to Russian travelers.

Last year, roughly 1,500 vacationers actually went, according to a Russian official from Vladivostok, a far-eastern city that has direct flights to Pyongyang.

Starting this February, North Korea allowed certain Western tourists to visit a special economic zone near the Chinese border. But after several weeks, the tours were halted without explanation.

That leaves very few nationalities able to enter North Korea. The U.S. State Department since 2017 has barred American citizens from entering the country.

Kim began touting the Wonsan Kalma resort in his New Year’s address in 2018. He pored through thousands of blueprints before settling on a final design, Pyongyang’s state-run media reported.

The sprawling seaside complex, with plans for high-rise hotels, a casino and shopping malls, took inspiration from the Spanish holiday mecca of Benidorm.

The opening of Wonsan was hailed in state media as an achievement of North Korea’s “people-first politics,” reinforcing the regime’s narrative stressing big investments for the well-being of the population, said Eric Ballbach, the Korea Foundation fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

North Korea’s major construction projects “often have an ideological angle to them,” said Ballbach, a German who has previously visited the Wonsan region. Trips to the resort for regular North Koreans are likely to be dangled as rewards for special loyalty, he added.

At Wonsan’s opening ceremony in late June, Kim, cigarette in hand, lounged next to a waterslide. He later strolled down the beach with his young daughter.

The complex can accommodate roughly 20,000 visitors, although satellite imagery shows much of it remains unfinished.

That didn’t stop Kim last month from hosting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who flew directly to Wonsan and stayed at the locale’s best hotel.

The two met aboard Kim’s luxury yacht anchored nearby, where the North Korean leader pledged to “unconditionally support” Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine.

Lavrov, during his trip, said the North Koreans have shown interest in welcoming more Russian visitors to the resort, state news agency TASS reported. A second batch of Russian tourists is expected to arrive next week.

But it will be a challenge to attract a real boom in foreign tourism to Wonsan since travelers headed to North Korea aren’t typically looking to lounge on the beach, said Rowan Beard, co-founder of Young Pioneer Tours, a China-based travel agency specializing in North Korea tours.

“Most people going to North Korea want to see Pyongyang, the military sites, the monuments, the Communism-related landmarks,” said Beard, an Australian who visited the Wonsan area multiple times before the pandemic.

Free Jet-ski Rides

The 13 Russian tourists—whose trip to Wonsan overlapped with Lavrov’s visit—needed to pay North Korea $1,400, in addition to around 35,000 rubles, or about $435, to a Russian tourist agency, to make the trip.

The meals, flights and other travel were covered; snacks, other incidentals and extra leisure activities weren’t.

There were several couples among the group, including one who had previously traveled to North Korea. Most were well-traveled and affluent, several of the attendees say. There were no children.

According to interviews and their social-media posts, they spent three days in Pyongyang, then were supposed to fly to Wonsan. But the Russians were abruptly told they had to journey there by train—which several of them attributed to Lavrov’s pending arrival.

It took around 10 hours to traverse roughly 120 miles to North Korea’s east coast, slowed by the country’s aged railroad tracks.

Daria Zubkova, a 35-year-old veterinarian from St. Petersburg, enjoyed peering into North Korean villages and observing the country’s rural landscape. “We got to see a lot from the train window,” she said.

Zubkova said she encountered almost no restrictions on what she could photograph or film. On her Instagram page, she has since uploaded videos of Heineken beer, Lego-style toy tanks and a bus painted with the slogan, “We work for the people!”

In Wonsan, the visitors were told there were separate beaches for locals and foreigners. The water park, with pools, hot tubs, saunas and slides, was off-limits.

To buy things, the Russians tapped electronic payment bracelets at the checkout, needing U.S. dollars, euros or Chinese yuan to add prepaid funds. Rubles weren’t accepted.

A bottle of beer cost about 60 cents, while a face massage ran $15. A plastic model of North Korea’s Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, atop its launch vehicle, fetched $465.

The nuclear-capable weapon—the largest of its kind ever seen at its 2020 debut—has the potential range to strike the U.S. mainland and has been flight-tested at least three times.

At one point, Zubkova asked how much it would cost to rent a jet ski and quad bike. The North Korean worker didn’t know how much to charge, so it was free. She said she has a long list of friends now eager to go to North Korea.

“Everything was brand new,” Zubkova said. “It all smelled brand new, too.”

Growing Pains

The Wonsan Kalma complex has experienced some growing pains, too, said Alexander Spevak, marketing manager of the Russian tourist group that organized the recent trip to Wonsan. He was among the first batch of 13 Russian travelers.

For instance, the hotel cleaning staff didn’t seem to acknowledge the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging from his door handle.

Spevak had set the water boiler to a higher temperature because he planned to take a shower. But the staff repeatedly entered his room and turned his boiler down to the minimum level.

When Lavrov visited, the resort became packed with North Korean visitors. Spevak, contrasting with what he saw days earlier in Pyongyang, assumed they were elites, based on their smartphones and nicer clothes.

“The people we saw at the resort were the first chunky North Koreans we’d seen,” he said.

Then, for unclear reasons, the North Korean visitors were handed swimsuits, goggles and hats. They waded into the waters en masse. That included Spevak’s tour guide, who clung to one of the Russian tourists for hours in the water.

“Our guide couldn’t swim!” Spevak said. “She was so scared.”

The unpredictable nature of the trip did end on a positive note. The canceled round-trip flight to Wonsan prompted the North Koreans to issue each Russian traveler a refund.

The Amount: 200 U.S. dollars, paid in cash.

China Has Surpassed The U.S. As The Largest Trading Partner

China has surpassed the U.S. as the largest trading partner for many countries, with a significant increase in trade volumes over the past two decades.

By 2022, more countries were trading more with China than with the U.S., reflecting a shift in global trade dynamics.

China’s Rise As A Trading Partner

Overview of Trade Dynamics

Over the past two decades, China has significantly increased its global trade presence, surpassing the United States as the largest trading partner for many countries.

This shift is attributed to China’s rapid economic growth and its strategic investments in infrastructure and manufacturing.

Key Statistics

Trade Growth: From 2000 to 2024, China’s trade volume surged by 1,200%, while U.S. trade grew by 167%.

Current Trade Figures: By 2024, total trade reached $6.2 trillion for China compared to $5.3 trillion for the U.S.

Countries Trading More With China: In 2022, 25 countries traded more with China than with the U.S., up from only 7 in 2002.

Major Trading Partners

China Has Become The Leading Trading Partner For Several Key Economies, Including:

Country Trade With China (2024) Trade With U.S. (2024)

Australia $90.1 Billion $70.5 Billion

Brazil $115.5 Billion $44.3 Billion

Germany $107 Billion $62 Billion

Japan $152 Billion $75 Billion