# North Korea is back open for tourists-Would you go? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 12, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240 "2025-02-12T16:41:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/41 "2025-02-13T19:01:04Z")
OK, I just skimmed the linked thread above, and apparently on authorized tours of NK tourists are expected, sometimes multiple times a day, to lay flowers and bow at the feet of statues of the Kims. Fuck that shit. As a visitor, I’ll keep my opinions to myself, but I’m not going to actively pretend to support these scum. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/42 "2025-02-13T19:10:19Z")
Never. I’d be terrified of some faux pas that would lead to my imprisonment or execution. Farting in the presence of a Kim poster or talking in my sleep in my bugged hotel room and saying something derogatory about the nation. Neither would I go to Russia or China. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/43 "2025-02-13T19:11:47Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > OK, I just skimmed the linked thread above, and apparently on authorized tours of NK tourists are expected, sometimes multiple times a day, to lay flowers and bow at the feet of statues of the Kims That’s a deal breaker for me. I withdraw my earlier willingness to consider a visit. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/44 "2025-02-13T19:17:13Z")
Not without a regime change and probably a full generation to de-program. There a lots of bits of Korean history I find interesting, and historical sites, but for _all_ the reasons mentioned upthread I’d find it too risky: the feigned respect, the putting money in the pockets of the Kims, the risk to life and liberty, and normalization of that society, etc. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/45 "2025-02-13T19:19:54Z")
Have any tourists been imprisoned other than Warmbier? To answer the OP. No way would I go there. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2025, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240/46 "2025-02-15T10:52:25Z")
I looked into travelling to the USSR back in the 1980s. They would allow you to bring along literature to read, like in your hotel room, before bed. Generally, what was allowed was old and established throughout the world, so the works of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling, all of which were known in the USSR, even in translation, were fine. Not saying that the USSR was great, but at least they realized that the arts extended beyond its borders. But in some of the documentaries I’ve seen, not even those authors are allowed in North Korea. You take nothing to read; if you do, it will be confiscated upon arrival. You get a copy of the _Pyongtang Times_ on the aircraft (it’s in English), and nothing else in English, during the time that you are there. Anything other than that are books (translated into English) by the Eternal President, the Dear Leader, and Kim Jong-Un. Not my kind of place, if I can’t even read something as harmless as, and as well-known as, Shakespeare. No, thank you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-is-back-open-for-tourists-would-you-go/1014240.md?page=2)