North Korea opening to tourists for first time in 4 years

North Korea is set to reopen its borders for tourism for the first time since closing them due to COVID-19 in January 2020, according to two tour groups that visit the country.

Tourism will resume in December 2024, according to Koryo Tours and KTG Tours, both based in China.

Russian tourists visited North Korea on a private tour in February, according to Reuters, but tour groups such as Koryo and KTG have been unable to go to the communist country since the COVID-19 closures.

For now, the only confirmed site is the northeastern city of Samjiyon, close to the North Korean border with China, and the country’s Mount Paektu, according to both tour groups. Other sites, such as the nation’s capital, Pyongyang, have not been officially confirmed to be reopening to tourism.

Mount Paektu is important to North and South Koreans as the birthplace of the Korean people as a whole, Koryo Tours explains on its website.

North Korea’s official news organ, the Korean Central News Agency, described it Wednesday as “the ancestral mountain shining with the sacred history of the Korean revolution.”

Americans looking to see the sights have a tough path. The U.S. and North Korea don’t have consular or diplomatic relations, and passports to enter the communist nation must be validated by the U.S. State Department. Americans, Australians and Canadians in North Korea use the Swedish Consulate for limited emergency services.

U.S. officials have urged citizens not to visit North Korea, warning that the country’s authorities “impose unduly harsh sentences — including for actions that in the United States would not be considered crimes” and that Americans there risk arrest and long-term imprisonment.

A University of Virginia student, Otto Warmbier, was detained for 17 months there after being accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster. He fell into a coma and died in 2017 after being released to the U.S.