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
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 …
Mongolian Archery: the way of the bow
August 21, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
YPT recently enjoyed their inaugural Naadam Festival tour, and one of the highlights of said tour was getting to watch Mongolian archery — these historical masters of the bow are truly a sight to behold. Why is archery such a big deal in Mongolia? Wel …
Who are KoryoLink?
August 20, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
It wasn’t all that long ago that cell phones were banned in North Korea for both locals and foreigners alike. Allegedly the ban occurred after an attempt on the leader’s life using a bomb set off via a phone, although this is very much an unconfirmed r …
5 best things to do in Rason
August 18, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Rason is the Special Economic Zone of North Korea that, if you believe the hype, will be a city of 2 million thriving businessmen within the next ten years. Whilst abstaining from comment on that particular claim, we will say that it’s definitely a YPT …
The Hummers of Rason
August 18, 2019 / by Gareth Johnson
Rason is a special economic zone (SEZ) located in the north-east of North Korea. Being an SEZ means it plays by different rules to the rest of the country, and it’s a very unique little corner of the DPRK. One major difference is that it operates outsi …
An Insider’s Guide to Egypt’s 7 Most Popular Landmarks
August 16, 2019 / by Pier Doyon
What do you think of when someone says Egypt? Obviously, the Pyramids will come to mind. Perhaps the Nile River, the longest in the world? Or how about the Pharaohs of Egypt, many whose tombs have been discovered and great riches unearthed. In a countr …
