It seems as if our earlier article outlining all the reasons we won’t travel to North Korea has caught the attention of a firm specializing in such tours. Over the past couple of days a representative of Krahun Co. has been quite active in the comments section of our original post.

In that article we made the following argument (among others) against travel to North Korea:

Unlike more open economies North Korean leaders can’t simply convert their domestic money (the Won) into other world currencies or borrow those currencies on world markets. Nobody outside of North Korea will accept Won as payment for anything. If the government wants to buy foreign goods, it must first obtain enough foreign currency (typically dollars, Euros, or Renminbi) to make the purchases.

And the DPRK really wants to buy foreign goods. One way the government keeps its generals happy is by plying them with French wine and Russian caviar. Bestowing foreign luxuries is a critical tool the ruling elite uses to retain power. But getting enough “hard currency” to pay for such extravagances is difficult for the regime.

Tourism is one avenue for bringing hard currency into the country”

We wanted to ask Krahun about this concern because we’ve seen other travel bloggers claim to have gotten comfortable with how their tour money is spent after discussing it with a tour operator. What follows is the transcript of our conversation with Krahun (edited only for length. The completely unedited version can be found in our comments section starting here.)

See if his answers make you comfortable paying for a tour to North Korea.

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