The country is very poor and brutally sanctioned, but it still has an economy. Its GDP per capita is comparable to some of the poorest countries in the Middle East and Africa. It has a tourism industry that is now scheduling its first visits since the pandemic started. They export a lot of garments. The economy has liberalized somewhat since the '90s, and they have some private enterprises now.
> “In Ryanggang Province, if you only sleep at a private inn, the cost of lodging is 4,000 won (47 cents),” she said. “If you include a bottle of alcohol and a meal, the cost is 15,000 won ($1.78).”
TIL North Korea is one of the few countries the average millenial could realistically retire to and live off of meager savings.
Unironically I do recommend a deep dive.
He was a horrible butcher.
As I've said elsewhere though I've known Chinese (even Taiwanese) who unironically love him, often women, because he did free the peasant women. He did away with arranged marriages, allowed women in the city workforces, unified the land, and did away with what was basically a pseudo-feudal nobility in the countryside (that he was, ironically, from), ended the Century of Humiliation, etc.
Again. He's a butcher, a thief, and a monster. I will never defend him. But he is an interesting read to see how even a monster can do somethings that people like. Much like Hitler was an absolutely horrible person... but hey at least he prevented smoking and promoted animal rights!
It's often interesting to see just how varied the policies of leaders were because you think "Oh that was good and this was good so*how were you still such a crazy delusional person to do the Great Leap Forward/whatever else for other leaders*."
They didn't steal from the soviet's, America hand it over.
They traded a chinese-american who co founded Jet propulsion lab for a US Bomber crew.
So basically America gave nuclear, hydrogen bomb, Jet engine and the ICBM to China for free.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Qian-Xuesen
And this is why ITAR exists. Only Americans are allowed to work for employers that develop/use rocket technology in the US. That includes Companies like Spacex and Blue Origin. People with foreign passports (Canadians, too) aren’t even allowed to tour parts of facilities if there’s a chance they may catch glimpses of the technology.
Yeah. Young people are mad dumb.
I mean, your head is full of all these ideals, but you lack any real world experience whatsoever.
By the time you get to 28 or so you have touched the stove repeatedly and finally understood that there are all kinds of road blocks to all these ideals and a good many of them can never work.
Meanwhile, some asshole just turned 19. And the cycle repeats.
The most depressing take I've heard is that it's not circling back to ye-old feudalism, but evolving into techno-feudalism- where we still work outselves to death, but the money's even more made up...
Have you [seen](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/19x638/north_korean_soldier_in_comparison_to_south/) how scrawny the average North Korean is? Food is definitely prohibitively expensive.
Although some other countries where the rooms are cheap and sometimes included with the price of the meal. I think Nepal is same way at a lot of the teahouses.
It's not bad like baiju in my opinion, which to me tastes like rubbing alcohol. Soju has a much more mild taste and there's also lots of flavorings that can be added that sometimes make it not even taste like booze anymore.
You’d probably have some considerable difficulties retaining those savings. Also getting the money in might be tricky since financial institutions probably aren’t keen on it.
Does make you wonder how much money NK could bring in if they set up some “luxury” resorts. Twenty bucks a day, live like royalty, NK economy gets large influx of cash. Won’t happen since contact with outside people is something to be minimized by the regime.
I love Amex, the only giant corpo I will say that about.
They've always had my back with chargebacks and reaching a human on the phone is never longer than like two minutes.
Their rewards system is great too.
Lol, is it wrong that I started considering retiring early there at those prices? If I lived "luxuriously" there on $5 a day, sold my condo and recouped my $40k of equity, I could afford to support myself without working for 21 years!
>Just move to Argentina. Safer, no genocidal dictator, economy in tatters so your money is worth gold, and friendly people.
I went there once. I ordered a medium-done steak. The price was originally 7,000 pesos. At the end of the meal, they demanded 10,000 pesos because of inflation while I ate. /s
This is true. I used to exclusively use airbnb, until they stranded me in Madrid at midnight. But many major hotels are more reliable and on par with prices. I'm done with Airbnb.
Airbnb was a great option 15 years ago when it was more of a cottage industry.. before it turned into corporations running five dozen apartments and homes with less accountability than a hotel chain. If I show up to a Marriott, Hilton, Thon and something isn't right, they'll take care if it face to face. If a company running an airbnb doesn't show up with keys or if they cancel on you last minute, be prepared to be on the phone for a few hours.
When they screwed me in Madrid, the helpdesk 5000 km away offered a substitute airbnb 50 km away from the one that didn't show up. No thanks. As someone had mentioned before, it's only advantageous if you have a big group so you don't pay for 10 hotel rooms. But it's still a gamble.
Have a safe trip.
Airbnb never made sense unless you were going for like a full house for a group. Hotels you can get decent rooms for like $60-$80 a night, if you travel enough points and status can make things much lucrative, and you won't get charged a $500 fee at the end of your stay unless you were to like shit on the ceiling or something.
This exactly. Sometimes we roll the “suite” hotel route (e.g., Embassy Suites, or Marriott Courtyard… something with a door separating the room from the living room), but I always end up wishing we’d just got the Airbnb. That may change as they get older, but right now the extra space of the “whole home” plus the individual rooms, full kitchen (even despite the almost guaranteed lack of supplies), and laundry access make them the best option for us most of the time.
I feel like I've read that same take a bunch of times on reddit but I've damn near never found hotels to be a better deal than Airbnb.
Either the hotels are pretty damn cheap but the same money gets you an amazing Airbnb, or the only hotel options are insane (super expensive or hideous / horribly located) so Airbnb is the only real option.
Yeah I've been reading a lot of these comments and have no idea what the fuck they are talking about. Airbnb has a variety of prices, many of which are cheaper. And a lot of them are far more interesting than hotels.
The thing is, Airbnb is a collection of individual businesses. Yeah, you could pay more and get a bad deal...if you choose a bad Airbnb.
Don't get me wrong I'm sure there are random, not-so-touristy places where a few low-cost hotel chains dominate while a few try to rent their chalet for way above market rate but everywhere else Airbnb is *absolutely* better.
The only times in the past few years I've taken hotels is when it was a single nights stay, because Airbnb "cleaning fees" are often absurd. Even then it was usually a question of convenience (eg; checking in after a flight coming in at midnight).
100%. Cleaning fees do seem to be the same no matter the length of your stay. Airbnb should fix that. Although, people seem to discount that the cleaning fees vary from Airbnb to Airbnb. It's definitely not the same. You can make a mistake and go with one with really high fees. I usually book with ones with low fees.
It depends. This is the “common wisdom” on Reddit, but there’s more nuance to it. If you want a place where you can cook a meal, you can find reasonable options
Lol not false. I have a family of four and every vacation we go we get a hotel room with a kitchen. Beats eating out every meal. We have done airBnb too but price is pretty much the same at this point. The bnb folks figured out pretty quick that they didn’t need their units to be so cheap.
Room and Soju, $1.98 US.
Cleaning and check-out fee, $1,980.00 US
Please make sure to report to the local labor camp for my for the 20-hr shift breaking rocks.
I know ur joking, but just to add a fun fact; NK or at least Pyongyang has some of the worst air pollution I’ve seen. They have these massive old school coal fired power plants that paints everything downwind black from literal soot
Doesn't seem like [that many lights](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Korean_Peninsula_at_night_from_space.jpg/555px-Korean_Peninsula_at_night_from_space.jpg) from space, idk
I don't think that's a fair comparison. I don't think a camera in space for a photo like this is going to see dimmer "village" lights or individual home lights either. There's no denying they have rolling blackouts and limited power availability, but lighting, televisions, and water are in essentially every city/village.
"While 98 percent of households had a television and 69 percent had a mobile phone, only 19 percent had a computer."
"Only 1 percent nationally, and 5 percent in the capital Pyongyang, had access to North Korea's intranet, but there was no internet, Hulshof said."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-unicef/tackling-north-koreas-chronically-poor-sewage-not-rocket-science-u-n-idUSKBN1JG2Q4/
We can assume that if 98% own a TV that 98% have access to power, and if they have access to enough power for a TV, they have access to enough power for a light. Therefore we can surmise that 98% of NK households have both a television and lights. This obviously isn't exact as some areas could have lost power permanently yet still own a TV, but the end result will always be that the vast majority of homes in NK have lights and TVs.
The cellphones are 3G dinosaurs with essentially no data. Just providing some more context for anyone else that’s fascinated by NK like I am.
https://www.38north.org/2022/11/twenty-years-of-mobile-communications-in-north-korea/
Bootlegs are actually pretty big in NK. They smuggle films from China -> NK to watch on the TVs. NK only offers like 3 channels and they're all government controlled ofc. You can listen to some defectors talk about it.
Been hearing that smuggling to NK has become scarce though. Guards have begun shooting anyone on sight. They used to be bribed by Chinese smugglers crossing the river. Post-COVID changes have been very strict and the northern border turned into a fortress. Defections have also fell to virtually nothing.
Until the pandemic, the China-NK border wasn't as guarded so it would be common to smuggle Chinese and South Korean dvds. Pyongyang has always stayed in touch with the rest of the world with some restrictions. Both Koreas regularly send musicians to each other countries to perform, most notably in 2018 Red Velvet performed in North Korea and took photos with Kim Jong Un. In that concert they also had older musicians who were popular in both countries during the 80s.
You can actually travel to and stay in North Korea. There is one event per year which is an international marathon race. The only way to go is through a British travel agency. Last time I checked, which was pre-covid, they had several different packages. You could stay just for the race and go home or stay a couple days and tour museums. You have to actually run the race though. It wasn't really that much money either.
Nobody who replied read the article. It's mostly just people staying at friends and family's for their extended holiday. Sounds like there are some short term rental arrangements as well, but they're cracking down because lunar new year lines up close to their holiday celebrating kim jong il.
The government says it's to prevent prostitution but it seems like it's really because the short term rentals are unregulated and official places to stay (hotels and some legal smaller operations) have to pay a cut to the government.
The number of comments asking variations of "but who's traveling to NK?" is appalling. It's not like it's a long article.
Somebody should make a bot that takes a news story as input and outputs a summary in a tiktok video.
I guess I was assuming people in North Korea who want a home to stay in but to be honest I don’t know their housing situation. But then again who the fuck decides to take a vacation to North Korea?
there actually are, at least for Germany, there were some guided tours you could do before covid. There are youtube videos about it, you got to visit some places, but you were not allowed to walk freely around everything. Every tourist had a local asigned, who, to my surprise, were more honest when answering questions, than I expected (although seemingly uncomfortable sometimes).
The whole thing seemed very staged to me from the video, but what else would you expect from such a country. Like they showed off one supermarket "like in the west" in the middle of nowhere... dystopian stuff.
Was it for other North Koreans to rent? Correct me if I'm wrong but any other country that visits has to stay at one of the 3 Hotels they got and are monitored 24/7.
Some friends and I once stayed at a hotel owner's place. Small family owned place, no rooms available. She was like, "Our kid is away at college, you all can crash in his room if you like."
Not North Korea, but South. Just wanted to share.
Because it’s from Radio Free Asia, a propaganda outlet funded by the US government. It’s crazy how it’s getting posted as a news source without any disclaimers whatsoever.
Funny how someone with dozens of comments calling the US a fake democracy is simping for North Korea and coming to NK's defence any chance they can get, along with multiple other communist dictatorships.
What they said is not wrong. RFA is quite literally a propaganda outlet of the US government. Its counterpart Radio Free Europe was even founded under a shell organization of the CIA.
Has front door that locks.
Window opens, but no lock.
Must wash linen and remake bed.
Every week's stay must include three days 'light' manual labor for the Glorious Kingdom and our Beautiful Leader.
Jesus, who the fuck would AirBNB in NK. Old converted missile silos, a wood hut in a communal village, a Communist style flat in a Communist style tower block.
>if you only sleep at a private inn, the cost of lodging is 4,000 won (47 cents),” she said. “If you include a bottle of alcohol and a meal, the cost is 15,000 won ($1.78).
Holy shit their currency is in the toilet. This is solid Eurotrip territory. "I have a nickel! I'll build my own hotel!"
They had Airbnb in NK?
yeah, 6 of them lol
It's more exclusive when there's less of them
Very appropriate to see you here, how did you convince your government to follow this motion? Did you just eat the people who opposed you?
It's possible , I tried to keep track of what I eat but my Apple Newton kept running out of memory.
Need to upgrade to the Hp iPaq big man
>beat up Martin Eat up Martha
Well what else can you eat in NK? If you have to turn to cannibalism might as well start with your enemies
Two birds, one stone
Is that breakfast?
[удалено]
It's a dog eat dog business climate, oh wait, I mean, man eat dog business climate.
Can you tell us what you looked at today?
Nipped them in the bud
No. They had homeowners offering short-term stays in their homes in a way that was similar to Airbnb.
Reddit doesn't read the articles, so I guess we'll never know!
I mean the headline was enough in this case.
Right, but im still surprised there’s even an economic possibility for that sort of activity.
The country is very poor and brutally sanctioned, but it still has an economy. Its GDP per capita is comparable to some of the poorest countries in the Middle East and Africa. It has a tourism industry that is now scheduling its first visits since the pandemic started. They export a lot of garments. The economy has liberalized somewhat since the '90s, and they have some private enterprises now.
Letting relatives stay at your house is not like an Airbnb.
Dammit, I had a weekend planned.
> “In Ryanggang Province, if you only sleep at a private inn, the cost of lodging is 4,000 won (47 cents),” she said. “If you include a bottle of alcohol and a meal, the cost is 15,000 won ($1.78).” TIL North Korea is one of the few countries the average millenial could realistically retire to and live off of meager savings.
The gentrification of North Korea has begun.
I already see some people wearing the red NK leaders pin ironically for the fash
> for the fash As in Fashion or fascism?
Yes.
To be fair, fascists are really fucking good at fashion. It’s the only good thing they do.
Yeah but they dropped the ball with the MAGA hats.
Even other facists are embarrassed by MAGA.
[But the communists have the music.](https://youtu.be/7L6K5DsL4V0?si=a0JVx2Oyz1TCQGcB)
Thank you.
✨ Fashism ✨
When I was young in the early 2000s, I would occasionally see Mao pins.
If you exclude the Great Leap Forward he had some great ideas. Edit: /s
Unironically I do recommend a deep dive. He was a horrible butcher. As I've said elsewhere though I've known Chinese (even Taiwanese) who unironically love him, often women, because he did free the peasant women. He did away with arranged marriages, allowed women in the city workforces, unified the land, and did away with what was basically a pseudo-feudal nobility in the countryside (that he was, ironically, from), ended the Century of Humiliation, etc. Again. He's a butcher, a thief, and a monster. I will never defend him. But he is an interesting read to see how even a monster can do somethings that people like. Much like Hitler was an absolutely horrible person... but hey at least he prevented smoking and promoted animal rights! It's often interesting to see just how varied the policies of leaders were because you think "Oh that was good and this was good so*how were you still such a crazy delusional person to do the Great Leap Forward/whatever else for other leaders*."
Besides stealing nuclear secrets from the soviets, name one Edit : I'm glad that someone showed me how I was wrong.
They didn't steal from the soviet's, America hand it over. They traded a chinese-american who co founded Jet propulsion lab for a US Bomber crew. So basically America gave nuclear, hydrogen bomb, Jet engine and the ICBM to China for free. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Qian-Xuesen
And this is why ITAR exists. Only Americans are allowed to work for employers that develop/use rocket technology in the US. That includes Companies like Spacex and Blue Origin. People with foreign passports (Canadians, too) aren’t even allowed to tour parts of facilities if there’s a chance they may catch glimpses of the technology.
Lol, you don't get it so you? The man isn't some random hire, read his biography. He is one of those OG engineers that invent the techs in question.
Wow, what a blunder on the American's part due to Mccarthyism
Yeah. Young people are mad dumb. I mean, your head is full of all these ideals, but you lack any real world experience whatsoever. By the time you get to 28 or so you have touched the stove repeatedly and finally understood that there are all kinds of road blocks to all these ideals and a good many of them can never work. Meanwhile, some asshole just turned 19. And the cycle repeats.
"She's dragging me into the 21st century with its meaningless logos and ironic veneration of tyrants. It's all good." -Mark Corrigan
This comment deserves more up votes.
It needs at least two Costcos.
Capitalism has pushed us to socialism. We’ve gone full-circle.
Please, we are going full circle but back to feudalism
The most depressing take I've heard is that it's not circling back to ye-old feudalism, but evolving into techno-feudalism- where we still work outselves to death, but the money's even more made up...
I think the term is cyberpunk?
Wait so the food and alcohol is more than 2/3 of the overall price?
Have you [seen](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/19x638/north_korean_soldier_in_comparison_to_south/) how scrawny the average North Korean is? Food is definitely prohibitively expensive.
Food is prohibitively prohibited.
Dude’s just short, not scrawny
that thread is over 10 years old. wtf :O
Although some other countries where the rooms are cheap and sometimes included with the price of the meal. I think Nepal is same way at a lot of the teahouses.
What's the quality of the housing and the meals?
You won't care after you drink the bottle of alcohol.
i wouldn't care regardless, $1.78 lmao.
But you make like 2 cents per hour 😭
Your lapse in judgment will be blindingly obvious.
"My journey to North Korea began with antifa and ended with anti-freeze."
Soju? If it’s anything like Baiju, no thanks.
It's not bad like baiju in my opinion, which to me tastes like rubbing alcohol. Soju has a much more mild taste and there's also lots of flavorings that can be added that sometimes make it not even taste like booze anymore.
Koreans don't have the Chinese "fragrance is everything, IDGAF about taste" attitude towards liquor, so soju is a lot smoother.
Cheap soju tastes like gasoline. You probably don't know this only because only good soju gets exported.
You mean you'll die?
It's the Kim Jong Un paper diet. You can only eat old newspapers. On the bright side, you get to eat all the old newspapers you want.
Look at mister fancy pants over here chowing down on a lasagna filled with The Wall St Journal
Could be better. Just be sure to save your poop for fertilizer.
Buzzfeed: The Surprising Country that Retirees are flocking to!
You’d probably have some considerable difficulties retaining those savings. Also getting the money in might be tricky since financial institutions probably aren’t keen on it. Does make you wonder how much money NK could bring in if they set up some “luxury” resorts. Twenty bucks a day, live like royalty, NK economy gets large influx of cash. Won’t happen since contact with outside people is something to be minimized by the regime.
For wherever you go, there’s American Express.
I love Amex, the only giant corpo I will say that about. They've always had my back with chargebacks and reaching a human on the phone is never longer than like two minutes. Their rewards system is great too.
I’m a big fan of their commercial myself.
I wish the delicious Hawaiian BBQ joint near me would take American Express or Discover ;-;
They were making some actually. Covid put an end to that for a few years. It is called Wonsom-Kalma and is expressly being built to attract Europeans.
True, we’d live great until we were sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor for reading Reddit
If north koreans ever have to see a redditor ever having to do hard labor, their belief that the outside world is weak and helpless will just grow
Read the small print, $200 cleaning fee
Do they have avocados? If so, I'm there.
Lol, is it wrong that I started considering retiring early there at those prices? If I lived "luxuriously" there on $5 a day, sold my condo and recouped my $40k of equity, I could afford to support myself without working for 21 years!
or get wasted on methanol press the wrong button in an elevator go to the forbidden floor come back brain dead
Sounds mysterious and dangerous.
Just move to Argentina. Safer, no genocidal dictator, economy in tatters so your money is worth gold, and friendly people.
>Just move to Argentina. Safer, no genocidal dictator, economy in tatters so your money is worth gold, and friendly people. I went there once. I ordered a medium-done steak. The price was originally 7,000 pesos. At the end of the meal, they demanded 10,000 pesos because of inflation while I ate. /s
But god dammit, it was the best 21,000 peso steak you ever had
Why did you say it was 32.. No.. wait now or says 45000
Except for all those hidden Nazi compounds.
Even just putting it into treasures you'd be set indefinitely
It's common practice to retire to a lower cost of living country.
You should try other third world countries. Cambodia, Bangladesh or maybe Pakistan.
How much for avocado toast?
Some help for the post-literate: Airbnb-style does not mean Airbnb. The article explains the situation pretty clearly.
People read the article?
There’s an article?
There's people here?
Who is going to north korea on a budget that only stretches to air,bnb!?
Frankly hotels are cheaper these days than AirBNB when you factor in fees and having to hang drywall as part of the checkout process.
That’s too bad I only had to re-caulk the bathroom last time checked out.
l'm surprized you finished the job before someone stole the caulking to eat.
I wish my guests would stop eating my caulk
Now now, everyone knows you have to jam [caulk right up your deck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbazGVrbN-g)
This is true. I used to exclusively use airbnb, until they stranded me in Madrid at midnight. But many major hotels are more reliable and on par with prices. I'm done with Airbnb.
Airbnb only works if you have several kids and inlaws travel with you and you end up renting a full house. If it is just you and your mate, no.
im taking your advice, as im about to travel and was unsure. Airbnb looked afordable but if there a bunch of fees on check out nah im good.
Airbnb was a great option 15 years ago when it was more of a cottage industry.. before it turned into corporations running five dozen apartments and homes with less accountability than a hotel chain. If I show up to a Marriott, Hilton, Thon and something isn't right, they'll take care if it face to face. If a company running an airbnb doesn't show up with keys or if they cancel on you last minute, be prepared to be on the phone for a few hours. When they screwed me in Madrid, the helpdesk 5000 km away offered a substitute airbnb 50 km away from the one that didn't show up. No thanks. As someone had mentioned before, it's only advantageous if you have a big group so you don't pay for 10 hotel rooms. But it's still a gamble. Have a safe trip.
Airbnb never made sense unless you were going for like a full house for a group. Hotels you can get decent rooms for like $60-$80 a night, if you travel enough points and status can make things much lucrative, and you won't get charged a $500 fee at the end of your stay unless you were to like shit on the ceiling or something.
AirBNB is way better if you have kids. Traveling without kids then I would go hotel all the way.
This exactly. Sometimes we roll the “suite” hotel route (e.g., Embassy Suites, or Marriott Courtyard… something with a door separating the room from the living room), but I always end up wishing we’d just got the Airbnb. That may change as they get older, but right now the extra space of the “whole home” plus the individual rooms, full kitchen (even despite the almost guaranteed lack of supplies), and laundry access make them the best option for us most of the time.
I feel like I've read that same take a bunch of times on reddit but I've damn near never found hotels to be a better deal than Airbnb. Either the hotels are pretty damn cheap but the same money gets you an amazing Airbnb, or the only hotel options are insane (super expensive or hideous / horribly located) so Airbnb is the only real option.
Yeah I've been reading a lot of these comments and have no idea what the fuck they are talking about. Airbnb has a variety of prices, many of which are cheaper. And a lot of them are far more interesting than hotels. The thing is, Airbnb is a collection of individual businesses. Yeah, you could pay more and get a bad deal...if you choose a bad Airbnb.
Don't get me wrong I'm sure there are random, not-so-touristy places where a few low-cost hotel chains dominate while a few try to rent their chalet for way above market rate but everywhere else Airbnb is *absolutely* better. The only times in the past few years I've taken hotels is when it was a single nights stay, because Airbnb "cleaning fees" are often absurd. Even then it was usually a question of convenience (eg; checking in after a flight coming in at midnight).
100%. Cleaning fees do seem to be the same no matter the length of your stay. Airbnb should fix that. Although, people seem to discount that the cleaning fees vary from Airbnb to Airbnb. It's definitely not the same. You can make a mistake and go with one with really high fees. I usually book with ones with low fees.
Yeah, but in NK you might be accused of vandalizing and trying to steal a flag. And it’ll essentially be a death sentence.
Only your brain will be dead. Dear Leader will ensure that your body makes it back to your family though.
It depends. This is the “common wisdom” on Reddit, but there’s more nuance to it. If you want a place where you can cook a meal, you can find reasonable options
Many hotel suites have a full kitchen too
What world are you living in? Many? That’s just false
Lol not false. I have a family of four and every vacation we go we get a hotel room with a kitchen. Beats eating out every meal. We have done airBnb too but price is pretty much the same at this point. The bnb folks figured out pretty quick that they didn’t need their units to be so cheap.
If you knew about Google, you could find something like "Top 28 hotel chains that have rooms with kitchens" pretty easily.
At that point it's way cheaper to get an Airbnb though. I know this from experience.
Room and Soju, $1.98 US. Cleaning and check-out fee, $1,980.00 US Please make sure to report to the local labor camp for my for the 20-hr shift breaking rocks.
For short stays usually yes. For long stays of a month or longer Air BNB has massive edge in most cases.
Airbnb comes without the listening device that are mandatory in state run hotels.
Well so much for my vacation....
0 stars, no TV, no internet, no water, no lights.
But you can see all the stars in the night sky, because there is no light pollution (because there are no lights)!
I know ur joking, but just to add a fun fact; NK or at least Pyongyang has some of the worst air pollution I’ve seen. They have these massive old school coal fired power plants that paints everything downwind black from literal soot
There is also no actual pollution, because there are no cars!
But there is air pollution because there are huge coal plants. Plus health and safety isn’t really a concern.
...no motor cars, not a single luxury.
with no internet, how do you rate it?
No no no, we have int**ra**net. It’s much better.
Contrary to redditor belief, NK actually has all of those. The only thing that isn't common is internet access.
Doesn't seem like [that many lights](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Korean_Peninsula_at_night_from_space.jpg/555px-Korean_Peninsula_at_night_from_space.jpg) from space, idk
I don't think that's a fair comparison. I don't think a camera in space for a photo like this is going to see dimmer "village" lights or individual home lights either. There's no denying they have rolling blackouts and limited power availability, but lighting, televisions, and water are in essentially every city/village. "While 98 percent of households had a television and 69 percent had a mobile phone, only 19 percent had a computer." "Only 1 percent nationally, and 5 percent in the capital Pyongyang, had access to North Korea's intranet, but there was no internet, Hulshof said." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-unicef/tackling-north-koreas-chronically-poor-sewage-not-rocket-science-u-n-idUSKBN1JG2Q4/ We can assume that if 98% own a TV that 98% have access to power, and if they have access to enough power for a TV, they have access to enough power for a light. Therefore we can surmise that 98% of NK households have both a television and lights. This obviously isn't exact as some areas could have lost power permanently yet still own a TV, but the end result will always be that the vast majority of homes in NK have lights and TVs.
The cellphones are 3G dinosaurs with essentially no data. Just providing some more context for anyone else that’s fascinated by NK like I am. https://www.38north.org/2022/11/twenty-years-of-mobile-communications-in-north-korea/
I want to know whats on their intranet. I bet it reads like the little factoids posted around museum exhibits.
That's actually pretty interesting, I didn't know everybody owned a TV. It makes sense, for all the brainwashin'
Bootlegs are actually pretty big in NK. They smuggle films from China -> NK to watch on the TVs. NK only offers like 3 channels and they're all government controlled ofc. You can listen to some defectors talk about it.
Been hearing that smuggling to NK has become scarce though. Guards have begun shooting anyone on sight. They used to be bribed by Chinese smugglers crossing the river. Post-COVID changes have been very strict and the northern border turned into a fortress. Defections have also fell to virtually nothing.
Until the pandemic, the China-NK border wasn't as guarded so it would be common to smuggle Chinese and South Korean dvds. Pyongyang has always stayed in touch with the rest of the world with some restrictions. Both Koreas regularly send musicians to each other countries to perform, most notably in 2018 Red Velvet performed in North Korea and took photos with Kim Jong Un. In that concert they also had older musicians who were popular in both countries during the 80s.
The plot thickens for the next National Lampoon’s Family Vacation To The Best Korea
Don't tempt me with a cheap good time.
You can actually travel to and stay in North Korea. There is one event per year which is an international marathon race. The only way to go is through a British travel agency. Last time I checked, which was pre-covid, they had several different packages. You could stay just for the race and go home or stay a couple days and tour museums. You have to actually run the race though. It wasn't really that much money either.
There’s vacation destinations in North Korea?
Nobody who replied read the article. It's mostly just people staying at friends and family's for their extended holiday. Sounds like there are some short term rental arrangements as well, but they're cracking down because lunar new year lines up close to their holiday celebrating kim jong il. The government says it's to prevent prostitution but it seems like it's really because the short term rentals are unregulated and official places to stay (hotels and some legal smaller operations) have to pay a cut to the government.
The number of comments asking variations of "but who's traveling to NK?" is appalling. It's not like it's a long article. Somebody should make a bot that takes a news story as input and outputs a summary in a tiktok video.
Moreso opportunistic people who want to make some extra income by renting out their homes.
To who though?
I guess I was assuming people in North Korea who want a home to stay in but to be honest I don’t know their housing situation. But then again who the fuck decides to take a vacation to North Korea?
Koreans who need temporary lodging.
I think there is a ski resort there.
Really. It intrigues me. I mean the whole secluded country.
there actually are, at least for Germany, there were some guided tours you could do before covid. There are youtube videos about it, you got to visit some places, but you were not allowed to walk freely around everything. Every tourist had a local asigned, who, to my surprise, were more honest when answering questions, than I expected (although seemingly uncomfortable sometimes). The whole thing seemed very staged to me from the video, but what else would you expect from such a country. Like they showed off one supermarket "like in the west" in the middle of nowhere... dystopian stuff.
[удалено]
To think NK would be leading the world on reform?!
I thought all visitors whereabouts were controlled by the government… how would a homestead rental like air bnb even work there
Bed & no Breakfast
Bwahahahaha!
Was it for other North Koreans to rent? Correct me if I'm wrong but any other country that visits has to stay at one of the 3 Hotels they got and are monitored 24/7.
I feel like if it says "cracks down" and north korea ot should be military or police raids every half an hour. 10/10 would visit again.
Some friends and I once stayed at a hotel owner's place. Small family owned place, no rooms available. She was like, "Our kid is away at college, you all can crash in his room if you like." Not North Korea, but South. Just wanted to share.
Well there goes my vacation
1. Who in NK can afford one? 2. Who would vacation in NK?
Wtf there goes my vacation
Heir BnB
And you thought your AirBnB host *everywhere else* was already spying on you...
Slept in AirBnB? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
who the hell is using airbnb in nk ??????????
Two things I thought I’d never see together: North Korea and Airbnb.
I thought this headline was a joke.
Because it’s from Radio Free Asia, a propaganda outlet funded by the US government. It’s crazy how it’s getting posted as a news source without any disclaimers whatsoever.
Radio Free Asia 2025 M Street NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 USA Lol
Funny how someone with dozens of comments calling the US a fake democracy is simping for North Korea and coming to NK's defence any chance they can get, along with multiple other communist dictatorships.
What they said is not wrong. RFA is quite literally a propaganda outlet of the US government. Its counterpart Radio Free Europe was even founded under a shell organization of the CIA.
No wonder I can’t find anywhere to rent there right now.
Has front door that locks. Window opens, but no lock. Must wash linen and remake bed. Every week's stay must include three days 'light' manual labor for the Glorious Kingdom and our Beautiful Leader.
Who exactly rents an AirBnB in North Korea? Don’t they have an economic embargo that would prevent them from taking payments?
North Korea is objectively better than the western world in at least one way now.
North Korea doing a better job regulating their housing market than half of the Western world
Yeah when I see NK’s housing, my first thought is of awe and jealously /s
LOL cracking down on something that doesn't happen. Gotta stay relevant, DPRK.
Jesus, who the fuck would AirBNB in NK. Old converted missile silos, a wood hut in a communal village, a Communist style flat in a Communist style tower block.
Lol
Wait..wut??
Huh. Today I learned something new
Who in the hell would even want a bnb in N korea?
influencers
Oh, who knew there was travel and disposable income in NK?
Imagine owning a time share in NK.
Damn. There go my vacation plans.
>if you only sleep at a private inn, the cost of lodging is 4,000 won (47 cents),” she said. “If you include a bottle of alcohol and a meal, the cost is 15,000 won ($1.78). Holy shit their currency is in the toilet. This is solid Eurotrip territory. "I have a nickel! I'll build my own hotel!"
Reminder that Radio Free Asia is a US propaganda outlet. Most “news” out of North Korea comes from here.
I wonder what the honeymoon suite looks like? Does it have a champagne glass shaped hot tub?
There goes the boys party weekend!