Welcome to the Young Pioneer Tours Blog, the place where we we keep you informed about everything YPT, from current tours, to future tours and a whole lot of eclectic stuff in between.
YPT first started blogging in 2008 and are considered the best North Korean Travel blog that there is.
But, as Young Pioneer Tours have expanded our locations, so have we expanded our blog. Now we have one of the best travel blogs in the world!
And while most of our content is about the numerous destinations we go, including travel guides and what to pack, we also delve into more serious subjects such as the safety of certain destinations, as well as how LGTBQ+ friendly the places we visit are.
While the vast majority of our content is produced in-house, we are always on the look-out for guest bloggers and writers. Want to write for us? Then simply get in touch.
You can also check out our sister publication YPT Life.
Check out and subscribe to the YPT Blog and travel magazine
26 April 2019 / by Nicolas Platt
In our inaugural post to guides of the provincial capitals of North Korea, we bring you Chongjin: the capital city of North Hamgyong province. Chongjin is North Korea’s third largest city, with a population of around 620,000, and is the country’s indus …
25 April 2019 / by Pier Doyon
With Marshal Kim Jong Un leaving his country for the first time after the US-DPRK summit in Vietnam, you might be interested in knowing how such a trip is doable. While we’ve previously covered how to get from Vladivostok to Pyongyang by plane and cove …
25 April 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
How do you say Korea in Korean? What do Koreans call Korea and all that jazz? Would a rose by any other name smell so sweet? I think Shakespeare said something like that, and from what I can gather he was saying ‘names are important’. But the good old …
25 April 2019 / by Pier Doyon
As we predicted , Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin today met in Vladivostok. Kim and Putin are meeting for the first time and much has been put on the table in terms of the level of collaboration that could happen between the two countries. Much is still …
25 April 2019 / by Alistair Riddell
What Korean provinces are there, or more specifically what North Korean provinces are there. We take a lot at the geographical divisions of North Korea. People, namely people who do not happen to live in North Korea, often see the country as a large mo …
25 April 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Young Pioneer Tours is always working with our Korean partners to open up new parts of the DPRK to tourism, and the city of Manpo in Chagang Province is now open to tourists as of April 2019. What the Manpo? Manpo is a large city of over 100,000 people …
25 April 2019 / by Pier Doyon
For a long time, the choices to go from the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai to the capital, Beijing, were either flying or taking the train. As trains are often much cheaper than flights, the choice truly came down to taking a slow train or take the hig …
25 April 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
North Korean snacks might not be famous the world over, but they are interesting and a highlight to any trip here. Without question, one of the elements of travel that I love most is sampling the local cuisine of any new country I’m lucky enough to vis …
25 April 2019 / by Alistair Riddell
Ever since I’ve been in China, I’ve held a preoccupation with the frontiers of this vast land. These are the places where the tidal wave that is mainstream Chinese culture washes against the shores of the other, the minority, the strange – and it often …