Pyongyang or Bust

Meet Nicholas Bonner, the founder of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which since the '90s has specialized in taking tourists to one of the last undiscovered nations: North Korea

Nick thinking he has won the Pyongyang International Marathon

When I was living in Beijing in the mid-noughties (did that ever stick? Anyway, circa 2006), where I worked as an editor for the that's Beijing magazine group, I remember being pitched by one of our writers on an unusual story idea - a trip to Pyongyang.

Intrigued, I asked her how it would be possible to visit the 'hermit kingdom', as it was known then, and she said it’d be fairly straightforward - Koryo Tours would take care of everything. They were a Beijing tour company, founded by a couple of Brits in 1993, which specialised in taking curious tourists into one of the most closed-off countries in the world (it still is). I don't think the story ever came about, but I bookmarked the website for my own future travel. Sadly, in 2008 - after the end of the Beijing Olympics - I moved back to Hong Kong, and the trip never happened. Koryo Tours, though, continued to thrive, popping up in the news from time to time, including in 2018 guiding ex-Monty Python Michael Palin into North Korea for a British TV series.

As borders reopen in our post-covid world, I became curious about whether the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is also open again for business, and reached out to Koryo Tours founder Nick Bonner to find out how things have been for them.

Polaroid of Joshua Green and Nick on one of their earliest tours circa 1993

Hi Nick, thanks for agreeing to this interview. How has Beijing and business been for you these last few years?

Our last tour was in January 2020 and since then all travel to North Korea has been blocked - we managed to keep the office going but it’s all been rather painful, like watching a Pyongyang melodrama where things go from bad to worse. North Koreans have a saying, ‘Over the mountains are mountains’, and true to form nothing improved and here we are still waiting for the country to open… one more mountain to climb.

It’s obviously quite an unusual destination to build a tourism business around. How and why did Koryo Tours establish?

My chum Joshua Green had worked in North Korea for a year in 1993 for the courier company TNT and I popped over to Beijing on a study tour (I lectured in landscape architecture in the UK and there was a big resurgence in interest in Chinese design). We arranged for a trip with a group of friends and that became our very first tour.

How did you feel when you first crossed into North Korea?

We went in by the 23 hour train from China (it’s not a particularly long journey but it just went at a wonderfully slow pace) and flew out with Air Koryo, which for some is the highlight of the tour. Traveling to North Korea is still surreal today, but in 1993 China was still in its shell so there wasn’t as marked a difference between the two countries. Nowadays crossing the border is from the modern world to Cold War days.

There must have been many difficulties to overcome, but what were the main challenges in setting up Koryo Tours?

Establishing trust with your North Korean counterparts is the main challenge and it took several years to achieve this, but this allowed us to set up more tour itineraries, cultural projects, film productions and events such as the Pyongyang International Marathon. As the saying goes, it was ‘10 years hard work followed by instant success’.

How has North Korea changed since your first ever tours?

In the mid-1990s, China was budding out towards engagement with the outside world and in my innocence, I thought North Korea was going to follow a similar path, but here we are almost 30 years later and there’s been almost no change to the map I purchased from the Foreign Language Bookstore - it still serves its purpose, not much has physically changed and even if it had I would need a guide to accompany me… and even then they probably would still say it was not possible without prior permission.

How have you altered your tours in the many years since?

My colleague Simon Cockerell has been responsible for opening up several new destinations, particularly on the east coast - he pushes and pushes and eventually the Korean travel company have to follow his path. He should perhaps be given the job of sorting out reunification, I have a feeling he would do better than most. Again, this comes back to perseverance, trust and the fact that our North Korean colleagues understand us and what tourists require so they are willing to push on our behalf.

What are the main rules tourists should follow during a visit?

Stick with the guides and be sensible, this is a trip of a lifetime but not a holiday. We pride ourselves in making sure tourists get the best trip possible, and we accompany tours to make sure that both the tourists and the North Korean guides are at ease.

What's kept you interested in North Korea all these years?

It would have to be the remarkable people we work with, from our tour guides with their wonderful sense of humour to film stars and artists with incredible talent we include in our movies. The world unfortunately rarely gets to see the human face - perhaps have a look at one of our films on Vimeo and you will see what we mean.

The Koryo team and North Korean guides in 2013 for a wedding of one of their staff

Tell me more about your design book Made in North Korea?

The Made in North Korea book was the result of collecting North Korean graphics each trip and putting them in a box and then forgetting about them. After 20 years of this (visiting the country most months) there were a number of boxes and we mocked up a book. We were going to self-publish but a friend asked someone at Phaidon for advice and to my surprise we got a call saying they wanted the rights, and it became a best seller. Later it went on to become the most popular exhibition at the House of Illustration in London, and as an encore the exhibition moved to Seoul – the first time the South Korean public had been allowed to see North Korean graphic design. What was piles of boxes of ‘stuff’ picked up on trips is now a carefully curated collection.

You also have a collection of thousands of artistic pieces?

The DPRK art collection we have is remarkable, with a number of pieces by artists who have since died – holding onto their works is really very moving. See more here.

You're also a movie producer - how different is that skillset?

Both revolve around you putting your mind to it and having a great team around you.

They all seem fascinating films, but the Crossing the Line documentary stands out for the story of how during the 1960s four young American soldiers not only crossed over the lines to North Korea, but chose to stay. Have you ever been tempted to live in Pyongyang (at least, for a while)?

I had a number of friends live in Pyongyang during the 1990s for a year or more, but the main problem was internal isolation (especially as a foreigner) combined with the inability to make contact with the outside world. It all changed in the 2000s when a foreign community developed with the embassies, UN organizations and NGOs, but still they were limited to socializing with each other and not with Korean locals. For certain film projects I am there for a month or two, which is great fun but intense, and it’s rather a relief to get out to the ‘freedom’ of China (and that is saying something!).

As well as tours to North Korea, you also run trips to Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. What is it about the more unusual destinations that attracts you?

My colleague Simon loves tourism to off-beat places – but even if we are taking tours to relatively easy places such as Mongolia we make sure that you are seeing something very different. We don’t run these tours just to make money, we love traveling to them.

For someone who has never been to North Korea, why go?

Every single tourist we have taken has said it was the trip of a lifetime - no matter whether they enjoyed it or not. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is one of the least visited countries in the world and quite awe-inspiring in oh-so-many ways.

Learn more about Koryo Tours here.