Iran now open to tourism in news we had long hoped for and indeed expected. The opening is for vaccinated tourists and will mean a resumption of tours to the country! To read our Covid-19 update click here.  Iran Now Open To Tourism – what has been announced? People who have received their second dose […]

With Iraqi government troops and Kurdish Peshmerga forces currently conducting hand-to-hand urban warfare with ISIS in Mosul, you might think that Iraqi Kurdistan is a no-go war zone. You’d be very wrong. Last October, Young Pioneer Tour’s Shane landed in Erbil, northern Iraq on the very day the offensive to recapture Mosul had started. Our […]

Coronavirus travel update. Welcome to the YPT COVID-19 / Coronavirus travel updates page. With this page we aim to give up to date travel advice on which countries are open to tourism during the current pandemic. As you might imagine one of the most frequent questions we are getting asked right now is which countries […]

After COVID-19 sent China into lockdown in late January the next country to be hit particularly hard was Iran, one of our traditional favourites countries and tours around the world. Our annual spring tour was, of course, cancelled with no prospect of travel to Iran this spring. YPT’s local partners in Iran have sent us […]

Shortly after disembarking from my Air Koryo flight in Beijing in January 2019, I called my parents to inform them that I had just visited North Korea for four days. My mother’s immediate reaction upon hearing my news was: “You better not go to Iran!” Although I promised her that I had no such plans, […]

For almost 5 decades, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (which roughly translates to ‘Southern Slav Land’) consisted of the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The Republic was led by the charismatic former partisan Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980. In the years following his death, […]

Iran is getting more and more tourists and rightfully so! It is a gorgeous and ancient country with formidable people which bring hospitality to the next level, truly! Most people nowadays can get a visa for Iran on arrival and the procedure is quite simple. For three nationalities however, things are a tad more difficult. […]

June 23rd 2019 Tensions have flared recently between the US and Iran following a dispute over the downing of a US drone. Tehran claims that the drone was in Iranian airspace, whilst Washington denies this and alleges that the unmanned craft was in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump did […]

With our Socotra tours starting and finishing in Cairo, and our numerous tours of Egypt, we have been getting a lot of requests for an alternative tour of Egypt, and we couldn’t leave you disappointed. Sure, you could go and get swarmed by the hordes of tourists and sellers in Giza or in Luxor, we […]

What is the Arirang Smartphone? North Korea often unfairly has a reputation as a place where things don’t work, but it really must be remembered that they are also a country under some extremely prohibitive sanctions. They are also governed by the Juche ideology of self-reliance, and since day one have at least tried to […]