For Sale: North Korean Tour Packages

According to the newspaper, five travel agencies are selling North Korea tour package to Americans. Those travel agencies include “Geographic Expeditions”; “For Travel”; “Universal Travel System”; “Asia Pacific Travel”; and “Koryo Tours.”

The North Korean travel itineraries vary, ranging from Travel’s four nights and five days to Universal Travel System’s six-week schedule. Including airfare to a stopover in Beijing, total tour expenses could cost as much as $5,000 to over $7,000. All of the packages are high-priced.

It is being reported that the tour to North Korea is boring and uncomfortable with limitations on the activities of the guides, with poor nightlife, restaurants, and lodging.

Nevertheless, it is being reported that the fact that North Korea has been closed for so long, and the North’s surreal charms from its surreptitious totalitarian country image are attracting Americans.

The Universal Travel System, based in Santa Monica, California, offers a seven night and eight day North Korean tour package worth $5,260, including two nights in Beijing, starting August 19 to September 30 for sale: 150 people have already made reservations.

For Travel, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, offers a China tour package including four nights in North Korea. It said that it included the North Korean itinerary as something new because some of its customers have already visited Beijing several times before.

The newspaper added that so far, North Korea opened its door to U.S. tourists while holding Arirang festivals in 1996, 2002 and 2005, but few people really traveled to North Korea because of the belated promotions for the tour.

Asia Pacific Travel’s North Korean tour itinerary includes visits to the War Memorial Museum for Independence, Pyongyang Women’s Hospital and Kim Il Sung statue.