Yes, but the requirements are so many and so demanding that few achieve it. It is also true that not many try it due to fear and ignorance, discouraged in advance by the bad press that the Asian country has. In fact, the annual average of European visitors rarely exceeds two hundred , apart from official delegations and special guests. Those who overcome visa and certificate obstacles must adapt to specific dates and travel in a group, and the stay and activities must be previously approved.
All this must be managed through the official North Korean tourist agency – the Korea International Travel Company (KITC) -, and any initiative of their own that a traveler wishes to propose is prohibited. Arriving in the country, the groups are accompanied by an official guide 24 hours a day , and these officials take turns watching even the sleep of the visitors.
To get them to include you in one of these tourist groups, you have to start the procedures months in advance . The country is reached with flights from Russia and, mainly, from Beijing (access from South Korea is prohibited). Once in Pyongyang, the capital, the itineraries have been the same for ten years, when the first tourists appeared. They include the monuments of Pyongyang, some iconic mountains, rural areas, and Buddhist temples . However, in recent times, at least before tension with the United States increased, there was a certain flexibility and it was possible to visit places hitherto excluded from the planned routes.
