North Korea Opens Seaside Resort Town: Move Over, Saint-Tropez!

I can’t help but be fascinated by unusual tourism projects. Along those lines, North Korea is officially opening a previously abandoned seaside resort town. The big question is who will actually visit, given the country’s lack of international visitors, and lack of a domestic tourism market…

North Korea’s Wonsan-Kalma resort town officially opens

North Korea is opening its Wonsan-Kalma beach resort development as of July 1, 2025. For background, this development covers 605 acres, and is along a 3.5-mile beach. The development features all kinds of leisure facilities, including thousands of hotel rooms.

The development is roughly 100 miles from Pyongyang, and can be reached by road in about two hours. On top of that, there’s even an airport in the region with a 10,000+ foot runway. It’s a dual use civil and military airport, but up until now, hasn’t regularly been used for commercial service (the military was here because it was a missile testing site).

This seaside project has been a long time coming, and was abandoned for years. Specifically, construction began on this back in 2018, with plans to open in 2019. Yes, that’s of course a very fast pace, but when it’s the North Korean military behind the development, it’s easier to stick to a schedule, in theory. I imagine they build as if their life depends on it, because, well…