The final frontier: A journey along the DMZ to North Korea’s doorstep | NK News
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October 04, 2026Oct 04, 2026

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The final frontier: A journey along the DMZ to North Korea’s doorstep

Tracing the DMZ’s rugged east coast, from Sokcho to Goseong, and the ghosts of the DPRK’s once-thriving tourism industry

Editor’s note: This article is the third in a multi-part series exploring key locations on the inter-Korean border that tourists can visit. Part one about remote border islands in the Yellow Sea can be read here and part two about the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom can be found here. 

If the western border regions are the Korean Peninsula’s historical heartland, the east coast is its wild and untamed soul. Here, where the rugged peaks of the Taebaek Mountainsplunge into the azure waters of the East Sea, the DMZ takes on a different character altogether — one of