Trip Planning
The TakeYourBackpack guidebooks are your all-in-one travel companion, featuring the best cities, national parks, hikes, beaches, and unique sites, along with essential tips on when to go, how to get around, exchanging money, and even local phrases to get you started — everything you need for a smooth, unforgettable backpacking adventure.
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Planning a backpacking route through North Korea can be tricky — you need to balance must-see places, travel times, budget, and how long to stay in each destination. Our free personalized North Korea itinerary planner creates a route based on your travel style, trip duration, and interests, so you can spend less time researching and more time exploring.
Personal tip: I normally search on good rating for atmosphere (for meeting people) and location (for easy exploring). Cleanliness as a bonus.
Travel Essentials
For North Korea, make sure routine vaccinations (measles-mumps-rubella, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, polio, flu) are up to date, and get hepatitis A and typhoid because food and water hygiene outside top hotels is unreliable. Hepatitis B and rabies are worth considering for longer stays, and Japanese encephalitis is advised if you visit rural areas in summer. Tuberculosis and malaria (in some southern border areas) are present, so check with a travel clinic 6 to 8 weeks before departure, and follow any additional health screening your tour operator requests at entry.
vaccination requirementsWhen I first started traveling, I often spent part of my first day in a new country hunting for a local SIM card. While this can still be slightly cheaper, it also takes time and planning.
These days, it's much simpler to install an eSIM before leaving home. Once you arrive in North Korea, you can activate it immediately and have mobile data from the moment you land — which is especially useful for ordering transport or navigating away from busy airports.
There are many providers nowadays, and price differences are usually small. I personally go with
Holafly, as it offers excellent network coverage throughout the country and strong global coverage, so you can manage multiple countries from a single app.
HolaFly eSimCulture & Customs
In North Korea, respect for the leaders is non-negotiable: bow when your group does at statues like those on Mansu Hill, buy flowers to lay there when your guide suggests it, and photograph statues in full, never cropping off feet or heads or mimicking their poses. Never fold, crumple, sit on or throw away newspapers or materials showing the leaders’ images. Do ask before photographing people, and do not photograph soldiers, checkpoints, construction sites or scenes of poverty. Avoid political debate, jokes about the leadership and the term “North Korea” in conversation with guides, who prefer “Korea” or “the DPRK”. Never hand out religious literature, South Korean items or leaflets, and never slip away from the group. Dress modestly at monuments and museums, women may find shoulder-baring tops and short skirts draw disapproval in conservative settings, and same-sex couples should keep affection private, as should everyone else.
Trying traditional food is always a great way to experience the culture. Here are some must-try dishes for North Korea.
- Pyongyang naengmyeon: Chewy buckwheat noodles served in an icy, slightly tangy beef or pheasant broth with sliced meat, egg, pear and radish. It is the capital’s signature dish, eaten year-round, and locals add mustard and vinegar at the table.
- Pyongyang onban: Warm rice topped with shredded chicken, mushrooms and a mung bean pancake, all drowned in hot chicken broth. Traditionally eaten in winter and at celebrations, it shows the milder, less fiery style of northern Korean cooking.
- Taedonggang sungeo-guk: A peppery grey mullet soup named after the Taedong River that runs through Pyongyang. It is served to honored guests and often appears at banquets for visitors.
- Injogogi bap: Sheets of “artificial meat” made from soybean pulp, wrapped around rice and coated in a spicy sauce. Born in the lean 1990s, it is now a popular cheap street snack and tells you a lot about recent North Korean history.
- Kimchi: Fermented cabbage or radish, usually less chili-heavy than in the south and sometimes served in a cold, watery brine. Every household makes a winter batch in late autumn, a ritual called kimjang.
- Haeju bibimbap: Rice mixed with seasoned vegetables, chicken and seaweed, a regional specialty from the port city of Haeju in South Hwanghae Province.
Tap water in North Korea is not safe for travelers to drink, and locals in Pyongyang and the provinces usually boil it first. Stick to bottled water, which is sold in hotels, tour restaurants and foreign-currency shops for roughly US$0.50 to 1.50 a bottle, and use it for brushing your teeth too. A filter bottle is a sensible backup for long rural drives, but bottled water is easier to rely on throughout the trip.
The main language in North Korea is
Korean. Backpacking is way more rewarding if you know a bit of the local language, so I'd suggest brushing up on the basics just in case your Korean skills have become a bit rusty.
Want to understand locals better?The complete Travel Guide for North Korea includes 52 essential words and phrases — greetings, thank-yous, ordering food, transport, numbers, and common local expressions you'll actually hear.
Get your local basic phrases 👉
Get the Travel Guide - in North Korea is spoken mainly by your assigned tour guides, many of whom trained at Pyongyang universities and speak it well, plus a few hotel reception and shop staff in the capital. Beyond that circle, even among younger people, conversational English is rare, and in rural areas it is close to nonexistent. Chinese is the foreign language most often understood by staff in hotels and shops, with Russian a distant second among older people and on the northeast border. Learn a handful of Korean phrases such as annyeong hasimnikka (hello) and kamsahamnida (thank you), and load an offline Korean dictionary on your phone, since foreign SIM cards and mobile data do not work for visitors.
Money & Payments
The local currency of North Korea is KPW (₩).
There are no ATMs foreigners can use in North Korea, and international credit and debit cards do not work anywhere, so bring all the cash you need for the trip. The tour itself is paid in advance by bank transfer to your operator, so the cash covers drinks, souvenirs, optional activities and tips. Bring euros, US dollars or Chinese yuan in small, clean, untorn notes; all three are accepted in hotels, foreign-currency shops and tourist restaurants, and change often comes back in a mix of currencies or occasionally in sweets. Visitors generally cannot obtain or spend North Korean won, apart from a few places such as some Pyongyang supermarkets where a supervised exchange desk is available. Budget US$200 to 500 for a week depending on how many souvenirs and drinks you buy, and never try changing money privately with locals, which is illegal and risky for both sides.
Tipping is not part of everyday life for North Koreans, but tour groups are expected to tip their guides and driver at the end of the trip, usually around US$5 to 10 per traveler per day, pooled and handed over in an envelope. Restaurants, hotels and shops in North Korea do not expect tips, though small gifts such as cigarettes, chocolate or quality snacks for guides are appreciated.
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Best Backpacking
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Over the years, I've learned the importance of packing minimally. It's so much easier to jump on the back of a truck or squeeze yourself into the last spot of a minibus without that supersized backpack. If you're headed to a warm destination, leave your winter jacket at home; for colder regions, opt for thin thermal underlayers. Instead of packing your entire wardrobe, bring just three sets of clothes, as laundry facilities are available everywhere.
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Hi, I’m Johan (Netherlands 🇳🇱), the creator of TakeYourBackpack. Over the past 3 decades, I’ve backpacked through 90+ countries across six continents, gaining extensive experience with independent travel, long-term trips, and overland routes.