Yough Pioneer Tours
Blog
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
The Babr: how a weird beaver-tiger thing became the mascot of Irkutsk
August 29, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Irkutsk is, much like Ulan-Ude on the other side of Lake Baikal, a charming departure from the more European vibe of Moscow. And much like Ulan-Ude, it oozes an idiosyncratic Siberian vibe that you just don’t get on the other side of the Urals – quirky …
Ulan-Ude: a day out in the Buryat capital
August 28, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Russia’s a big country. Like reaaaaalllly big. Everybody knows that on an abstract level, but it may well be that you have to experience it to really understand that vastness and to see just how different Moscow is from, say, Eastern Siberia. I recentl …
Made in DPRK – The Naenara Browser
August 28, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
At Young Pioneer Tours we have more than a casual interest in the technology and software of the DPRK. We’ve previously written about Red Star OS, the Arirang smartphone, and the Samjiyon tablet. Today on our ‘made in the DPRK’ series, we’ll be looking …
North Korean celebrities: making it big in the DPRK
August 27, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
When people write – or talk – about North Korea, it would be easy to assume that the country is merely comprised of the first three leaders of the country: President Kim Il Sung, General Kim Jong Il and current leader Chairman Kim Jong Un. But believe …
Samjiyon County
August 27, 2019 / by Troy Collings
The main draw of Samjiyon county is of course the famous Mt Paektu. The highest mountain in the region, this volcanic mountain is known well for its beautiful crater lake — Lake Chonji — and for its deep symbolic history to Koreans (and North Koreans …
Abatao Island & village
August 27, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
One of the best (or worst) things about our Least Visited Countries Tour is the sheer unpredictability of Pacific Island life – a level of unpredictability that necessitates a lot of itinerary changes. On our 2017 trip to Kiribati we decided to leave t …
Top 5 Divided Countries
August 23, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
When you visit North Korea (which, believe it or not, we quite often do), you will often be told that Korea is, post-Berlin-Wall, the last of the divided countries on earth. As with anything, however, the truth is a tad more complicated than that. Here …
Mutton and mare’s milk: the very best of Mongolian cuisine
August 22, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
The Mongols may have done a lot of conquering, but they didn’t develop a handy trick that the British would later employ to devastating effect: invading nations and stealing their best food. Whereas the British Empire evolved from boiled potatoes to ch …
Born in the saddle: the thrill of the Mongol horse race
August 22, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Horses are kind of a big deal in Mongolia – there are three million horses in the country, which is, coincidentally, how many people there are. How many other countries can claim a 1:1 human-horse ratio? You can appreciate, then, just how huge a Mongol …
