North Korea FAQ: Will Visiting North Korea Stop Me Going to Other Countries in the Future? (2022)

hello everyone and thank you for joining me once again so this video is going to be a very short question and answer video this week and we're going to be talking about the topic will my visit to north korea affect future travel so without further ado we're going to get into it but before i do just one second i want to thank my patrons thanks for the constant support to the channel and that is to clark james charles and alex okay so let's get into it so unfortunately at the time of recording which is may 2022 oh my gosh it's that time of year already the dprk borders are still unfortunately shut but that doesn't mean we can't look ahead and hope for a border reopening potentially in 2023 and start planning our tours to north korea and thinking about these kind of things again so will your visit to north korea affect you from traveling to other countries in the future generally no however there are a few important exceptions so please stick with me and firstly i also just want to set out a little bit of a disclaimer that everything i say here is from official information currently available in the public domain or it's from my own personal experience and knowledge in the industry of north korea tourism however that doesn't mean that on an individual basis all of this applies 100 of the time and is 100 accurate so bear that in mind when you do plan your torch in north korea so traveling to north korea you don't get a visa or a stamp in your passport you can if you want you can apply to especially get the visa stamp into your passport but usually i've spoken about this before the north korean visa comes in a blue booklet i'll probably put a picture of it here um it comes in a blue booklet and it's outside of your passport and that is what gets stamped on exit and on entry and upon exit of the country they take this blue slip off you so you do not take it out of the country therefore technically there is nothing in your passport saying that you have been to north korea i've been to south korea multiple times for example and none of them actually i even have north korean stamps in my passport that's a different story and but i've never been picked up on it however one thing to note is that if you are traveling in and out of north korea via the train at any point you will be going through a um a border crossing called dandong in china and if you are crossing through dan dong in china you're going to get an entry or exit stamp that says dan dong in it now it says that in chinese characters and not many people know where dan dong is or you know anything really about dan dong but if they really wanted to they could figure out that you've been to north korea because of this stamp because if you are exiting or entering china through dan dong there is only one possible country that you could have been as exiting or entering from and that is north korea in fact i have this um in my passport i have a load of dun dun stunts in my passport i can show you what it's like i don't know if you can see it here or if you can read chinese characters um but i will put it up bigger found a clearer one view here that is an exit from dandong and that's an entry from dandong if you're interested this is my last time out of north korea 2020 january the 7th who knew that i would be here doing this right now having still never re-entered north korea so of course this dandong stamp is absolutely no problem it's just um one of the things that potentially could signify in your passport that you have been in and out of north korea now this is usually not a problem actually there may also be instances where you have to declare that you've been to north korea for example um some country visa applications might ask you which countries you've visited in the past five years or past couple of years or name the past 20 countries that you visited something like that and you definitely shouldn't lie on these applications but if you've been to north korea it doesn't usually matter however there is one country where the rules change up a little bit and so if you do travel to north korea it can make a difference if you then want to travel to the usa as some of you might be aware there is currently a travel ban on americans visiting north korea as of tuesday 6th of august 2019 the united states has introduced tribal restrictions on foreign nationals who have visited north korea the u.s government announced that anyone who has been to north korea since march 2011 would no longer qualify for the esther the visa free entry scheme used by citizens of many countries so this basically means that people who are previously eligible to get the esther visa which is a simple electronic visa that you kind of apply for online to transit through the usa you can no longer get this esther visa however it doesn't mean that you're banned from visiting the usa it simply means that you have to go through the whole process pay for and wait for a proper full u.s visa otherwise that is about it in general no it will not affect your future travel if you have been to north korea most people won't even know about it so that is really about it thank you for sticking with me until the end let's cross our fingers that north korea travel resumes in 2023 um and i can see you guys there thanks see you next time bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] you