Welcome to the Young Pioneer Tours blog about everything North Korea, and all of our other special off the beaten the track destinations.
Since starting in 2008 we have seen blogging about North Korea and our other great destinations as a great way to engage with our customers and to show the world a slice of life in the great destinations we visit.
Due to the mass amount of great content we create, as well as receive from our Pioneers we have since started our travel lifestyle magazine “The Young Pioneer”.
We’re always looking for contributors to our sites, so feel free to browse through our blogs, and , get in touch if you’d like to write for us.
Check out and subscribe to the YPT Blog and travel magazine
29 December 2016 / by Justin Martell
Whether you consider it a pariah state or simply misunderstood, North Korea is known for going its ‘own way,’ and the Hermit Kingdom’s fashion trends are no exception. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnVwnEUskJk If you are travelling to North Korea, yo …
20 December 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
A perk to working in North Korean tourism is access to the fascinating literature of the DPRK. Rarely read by foreigners or made available online, we’d like to share some. Here is an unedited excerpt, taken from the book “Anecdotes of Kim Jong Ils Life …
19 December 2016 / by Alistair Riddell
Mealtime in North Korea, like many East Asian countries, is a communal gathering with a shared assortment of dishes. Those who have visited North Korea on a tour have had the experience, sitting around the lunch table, drinking a beer, and discuss …
6 December 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
Working in tourism in North Korea, YPT regularly answers questions about safety and security issues for when we’re visiting the country. The media paints a certain picture of the country and it is understandable that some people have questions about th …
28 November 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
Who doesn’t love a sunset or sunrise? One of life’s simplest pleasures enjoyed by everyone around the globe…and Myanmar has some of the most remarkable in the world! So here is our list of 5 of the ultimate spots to watch a sunset or sunrise in Myanm …
23 November 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
It is interesting that when one begins to type “Niland” into the search bar, the first suggestion that Google offers is “nihilism”; defined as “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless” and as “e …
12 November 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
Duck head, lotus root, pig intestine soup… Sound like familiar X-Factor fare? In actual China, you’re more likely to find boiled chicken feet than deep fried chicken balls, and most Chinese people will look at you like you shot their grandmother if you …
3 November 2016 / by Eilidh Crowley
Having left the relative cool of the Kopet Dag mountain range where we’d spend the previous night with a local family in a village, we drove along the one road heading from Ashgabat to the west of Turkmenistan. Gradually it got hotter and drier as we v …
7 October 2016 / by Gareth Johnson
Over our 10 years at YPT pioneering travel to “destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from” it is fair to say that we have always tried to push the envelope with new tour locations. Some of our favourites such as Iran, Central Asia, and …