Border Tourism

Nowhere else in the world will you see, every day, thousands of carefree visitors wandering around and taking selfies in a restricted military area in what remains a genuine war zone. Although there are no comprehensive statistics on this subject, it is reasonable to estimate that tourism related to the inter-Korean border accounts for several million visits each year, including 1.2 million visits to the Imjingak complex. For many foreign visitors, the DMZ area is one of the top day trips from Seoul, right up there with the royal palaces and historic districts.

The so-called “DMZ Tourism” emerged from the 1970s onwards, with the gradual opening up of border areas that were previously strictly off-limits to civilians.

A key early anchor was Imjingak, a park built in 1972 in the city of Paju as a place of remembrance for families separated by the Korean War. From the start, this “resort” located approximately 50 km north of Seoul and 5 km from the border mixed mourning, education and sightseeing, an imprint that still shapes the area today.

The first observation deck with a direct view of the North to open to the public, in 1984, was the one in Goseong, on the east coast, which remains the only one in Korea managed by veterans’ associations. It was followed by the Dora Observatory in Paju three years later. The discovery of several infiltration tunnels dug by North Korea under the Demilitarized Zone in preparation for an invasion of the South gave the authorities the idea of transforming these sites into tourist attractions to raise public awareness of the security risks posed by Pyongyang.

It should be noted that when it comes to border tourism in South Korea, conservative governments like to promote “security tourism,” while left-wing governments prefer to talk about “peace tourism.” The two expressions actually mean exactly the same thing. The many travel agents and shop keepers who profit from this don’t care anyway.

Thanks to, or because of, its proximity to Seoul, just an hour away by bus, Imjingak has become the archetype of a tourist factory. Over the years, all kinds of border-related attractions have been added to the original places of contemplation, from a “DMZ Gondola” to a virtual “DMZ Experience Center” and even a small amusement park equipped with a giant pirate ship swing, all seasoned with countless fast-food restaurants, selfie spots and souvenir shops selling grenade-shaped water bottles, fridge magnets warning of minefields or rifle bullet key chains. In 2025, a new attraction opened there: a “North Korean Experience Center” where, for an admission fee, visitors can meet genuine North Korean defectors. The paradox is that, although Imjingak is the most popular tourist site along the border, it is impossible to see North Korea from there.

Dozens of travel agencies offer so-called “DMZ Tours” departing from Seoul, for better or for worse. The typical route starts at Imjingak, where guides line up to obtain permits to enter the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) on a first-come, first-served basis, while their clients take photos of the Imjin River behind the barbed wire decorated with multicolored ribbons and grab a bite to eat at the many fast-food restaurants. The tour buses then pass through the military checkpoint leading into the CCZ on the Unification Bridge and stop at the Dora Observatory, which offers a spectacular view of the large North Korean city of Kaesong, and at the nearby Third Infiltration Tunnel. Both sites are located less than two kilometers from the border, and thus technically within the DMZ, as the photo spots set up for tourists remind visitors. The trip ends with a stop at the souvenir shop and buffet restaurant in the Unification Village.

Much to the chagrin of travel agencies, the most spectacular tours—those that took visitors to Panmunjom’s Joint Security Area, where they could look North Korean guards straight in the eye and even take a few steps across the border into one of the huts straddling it—have been suspended following the defection of a participant to the North in July 2023. Less crowded packages take visitors to Cheorwon, in the center of the peninsula, or Goseong, on the east coast.

Since 2024, Imjingak has had a serious competitor: a Starbucks Cafe that opened in Aegibong, right in the Civilian Control Zone facing North Korea across the Han River Estuary. Hordes of tourists flock there every day to photograph their capitalist-style chiaramello macchiato or ice americano with the Workers’ Paradise in the background, as part of packages that also include duty-free shopping sprees at Lotte Paju Premium Outlet, the largest of its kind in South Korea.

Taking one of these day trips is always a disconcerting experience in many ways, one in which you constantly swing between amusement, disgust, and astonishment. But who on earth came up with the idea of setting up an apple-shaped photo spot in front of an actual minefield, next to an oversized “mine” sign just to make it look better in the pictures? Unless you take it with a grain of salt, it’s also something to avoid at all costs for those allergic to package tours, forced group photos in front of uninteresting monuments and photography bans on breathtaking landscapes, air-conditioned buses, souvenir shops selling DMZ cookies, yelling tour guides and schedules down to the second. In any case, that’s the price you have to pay to visit certain iconic sites that are off-limits to independent travelers, such as the Dora Observatory mentioned above—the only place from which you can see a major North Korean city.

To manage this situation—unique in the world, in which thousands of foreign tourists pour into a restricted military zone along an active front line every day—the system is well-established. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, the military police are never far away and the guides are strict when it comes to their visitors’ lack of discipline.

Sometimes—rarely—a pebble gets stuck in the gears. Live-streaming one’s defection to North Korea to rack up YouTube views may be a dream for some, but it has become impossible since the Joint Security Area—the only place where this could possibly have been done—was closed to tourists for that very reason. Every tour guide’s worst nightmare, though, is that a guest strays from the group right in the middle of the CCZ, causing the military to completely frereze and shut down the zone until the missing person is found.

This does happen occasionally. One visitor, fearing he would miss his flight, reportedly managed to leave the CCZ by taxi to rush to the airport leaving hundreds of other tourists in a bind. A guide also told me that someone once had the bad idea of flying a drone near the Dora Observatory, right in the middle of the DMZ and within sight of North Korean guard posts. All the tour buses in the area were held up for hours and searched by soldiers until the culprit was unmasked.

It’s easy to complain about mass tourism, to mock its irrationality, or to judge it as immoral when it feeds off an endless tragedy like the division of Korea. But we need to ask the opposite question: what would the inter-Korean border be like without tourists? Entire communities near the DMZ, such as the border village of Tongilchon, would lose almost all their income and become ghost towns. Millions of foreign visitors would leave South Korea every year completely unaware of a cruel reality that was right under their noses. And the border would revert to what it was just after the Korean War: a desolate death zone, inaccessible to the civilian world, sealed off from all outside view. Better take selfies with your Starbucks coffee than wage war.