Personal Service From the Start
Our tours start in China, and we make sure your time there is comfortable and worry-free. With an office in China in addition to our North Korean headquarters, our Krahun team in China personally welcomes and takes care of each and every tour guest. We offer convenient airport pick-up and drop-off services via private vans, hotel reservations on your behalf at excellent facilities, and anything else to make your trip smooth. From helping you exchange currency into Chinese RMB to stopping by the market to pick up a few last minute items, our staff is on call for every one of our guests.
Seamless Travel to and from North Korea
We provide the most seamless experience entering and exiting North Korea. Crossing borders and going through the customs process in any new country can be a daunting experience for some. Every single Krahun tour is personally guided by one of our experienced staff members through the China-North Korea border. Our staff members have collectively entered and exited the border countless times since 1999, so much so that many DPRK border personnel have come to know us personally. We also take care of all North Korea visa processing so guests can sit back and relax.
Always accessible and close by
Throughout your tour led by local North Korean guides we are always close by and accessible in the country as well. Have a last-minute question or request while in North Korea? With our own North Korean phone line, local staff with North Korean cell phones, multiples cars, and 24/7 access to broadband internet to send emails and fax within the country or to the outside world, we can take care of it. We can regularly stay in touch with your DPRK tour guides via cell phones to discuss and plan various tour details. Our guests can rest assured that they receive unparalleled service and attention. And for tours outside of Rason such as Chongjin and Pyongyang, an experienced Western staff member from Krahun personally joins and guides your tour.
Extensive North Korean Relationships
Living and working in – not just visiting – North Korea since 1999, our close relationships with our local partners at the tourism bureau are unmatched. For years we have worked closely and regularly with the tourism bureau and their local guides, collaborating on tour projects and making sure all our tours go as smoothly as possible. We frequently host tour guides at our headquarters, where we chat over coffee and a home-cooked meal, and we stop by the tourism bureau at anytime to discuss tour-related matters. Our deep relationships give us unprecedented freedom and flexibility, and help make our tours truly special.
Exclusive Access & Opportunities
Our long history and relationships have engendered trust and understanding, allowing us to offer our guests experiences that are truly exclusive and possible only through Krahun. For example, only Krahun guests can visit certain foreign owned businesses in the region and hear directly from the people who run them – they are our personal friends. Want to ride bikes along the North Korean coast? You can with Krahun bikes! Last year Krahun was given approval for our guests to bike freely along the beautiful coast – the first time ever in this region. Our guests can bike on every tour. Also, our guests have the rare opportunity to work with locals and make a tangible difference through our innovative service tours, allowing people to work through hands-on volunteering.
Commitment to the Local Community
We’re not focused just on profits and the bottom-line, but also on helping develop the local economy to benefit the North Korean people. Since 1999, we have reinvested a large percentage of our profits into new projects and sustainable initiatives, spurred by new needs and opportunities in the region. With most of our operations located in the country, we are a part of the local economy: we employ local North Koreans; we buy food and crops locally to feed not just ourselves but our farm animals as well; we hire locally for construction projects, refrigerator issues, car repairs; we frequent local barbers and salons, bathhouses, restaurants – this is our home. So our tours benefit the local community in more ways than one.
Difference in Action
Mere days before a family of 4 was set to come on tour, unprecedented rain created a crisis in the region, forcing the closure of roads and borders, and rendering travel and phone calls into the DPRK impossible. Krahun staff immediately jumped into action, working with the tourism agency inside the country to try and re-schedule the tour at the last minute. With phone calls from the local tourism agency to the outside impossible, Krahun became the only link and means of communications to the outside world. With internet access at our DPRK headquarters, the ability to drive to the tourism agency downtown and speak with people in person, and our China office working with tourism officials in China, we were able to monitor the situation in real time, coordinate with the local tourism agency, our guests, and our staff members in China, and re-schedule the first day of the tour as soon as the border was re-opened for tourists. The family of 4 was able to come inside and have the trip of a lifetime.