Traveler goes viral for trip to one of the most secretive places on Earth
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Man on YouTube says country had 'plenty of enjoyable moments' since allowing tourists

By   
Fox News  
Published March 7, 2025 4:00am EST

A British traveler recently went viral after documenting his unique experience as one of the first Western tourists to visit North Korea in over half a decade.

Mike O'Kennedy boasts more than half a million followers on his YouTube channel, "Mike Okay." His travel documentary about his journey to North Korea, "Inside North Korea After 5 Years of Isolation," accrued over 3 million views in the first week since it was posted on Feb. 28.

O'Kennedy, who said that he likes to "do things as uncensored as possible," spoke with Fox News Digital about his experience visiting the isolated country. He arrived in the city of Rason on Feb. 20. **(See the video at the top of this article.**



"My main kind of takeaway was that this is an incredibly developing country that is at least 50 years behind anyone else," O'Kennedy said. "It's where China was… in the mid of the last century."

"I'm not qualified to talk about it politically," he continued. "But what I can say is, it's an incredibly proud country."



O'Kennedy's candid video of the trip showed several strange situations. While flying over North Korea, he and his fellow plane passengers were required to keep their window blinds closed to prevent them from seeing the country from the air.

North Korea partially resumed international tourism last year after nearly half a decade, according to tourist operators.

"The Hermit Kingdom" closed its borders at the start of the , banning almost all outsiders from entering the country for business, travel or non-vital diplomatic relations.

The country partially re-opened its borders in 2023, Fox News Digital reported.

However, reports now say that trips to North Korea, as of Thursday, have been canceled.



"Just received news from our Korean partners that Rason is closed to everyone. We will keep you posted," China-based KTG Tours, which specializes in North Korean tours, said Wednesday on Facebook, as BBC reported.

Since O'Kennedy's visit,  has once again closed its borders, suspending foreign tourism just weeks after it welcomed its first Western visitors.

At one point in his documentary, O'Kennedy is seen trying to open a window in his  before realizing it's been sealed shut.

> "There were times where you could cut the tension with a knife. You could feel the weight of this moment."

He told Fox News Digital that there was "pressure on the whole situation."

"This is the first time any foreign tourists and non-Russian and non-Chinese tourists have entered the country for five years," he said.

"So, there were times where you could cut the tension with a knife. You could feel the weight of this moment."

Though O'Kennedy wasn't granted the freedoms he would normally enjoy during his travels – such as interacting with locals, using the bathroom without permission and taking solo walks – he was still acutely aware of the special treatment that he and his fellow tourists were getting.



"Instead of it being like, 'We're not allowed to see this because that's secret' … it was just more that they just wanted to show you the best it had to offer," he said. "I didn't have this overwhelming feeling that this is a bad place."



"Almost every song that comes out of the DPRK is, as expected, a tool of worship toward the country's current or former leaders," he narrates in the video. "The recurring theme throughout this trip was the utter devotion people had towards … To them, he's a god."

> "We did karaoke one night…drinking North Korean soju  North Korean beer, which is delicious, by the way."

But the expert traveler also said that he enjoyed simple pleasures on the trip, such as North Korean beer – though  left something to be desired.



"We did karaoke one night … drinking North Korean soju  North Korean beer, which is delicious, by the way," O'Kennedy recounted. "Smoking North Korean cigarettes with all guides, and singing karaoke with them. And that was pretty cool. That was a pretty fun thing to do."

He added, "The food was nothing to write home about for me. It didn't feel like anything I'd really had in Asia before. Maybe toward the weirder side of, like,  with … sea slugs and clams. And we had a flaming snail at one point."



O'Kennedy also said that he had never encountered an area remotely similar to North Korea before.

The Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in  was the only place that came close.



"There was doing a lot of hitchhiking and stuff , and the police would just pop up out of nowhere a few times … They don't get any foreigners out there at all, really," he said.

"So, there was a level of  kind of control and curiosity, but not on the same level as  was. This was very restricted to the point where it sometimes felt a little bit claustrophobic."

O'Kennedy said he expects that tourism in North Korea will go back to its restricted, pre-pandemic levels. He also hopes that  get the chance to interact with North Koreans.



"The more people go to North Korea, the more North Koreans we get to meet. And I personally think that's a step forward for the world."

O'Kennedy's documentary can be 

_Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz contributed to this report._

Andrea Margolis is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. Readers can follow her on X at  or send story tips to .
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