Discover North Korea

Zoe Stephens has visited North Korea multiple times, and her podcast is built on a simple premise: talk to other people who have actually been there. Over 46 episodes, she brings on tour guides, filmmakers, UN workers, and repeat visitors who describe what daily interactions in the DPRK actually look and feel like -- the food, the hotels, the conversations with minders, the moments that surprised them. The show deliberately positions itself away from sensationalist coverage, trying to present North Korea as a real place inhabited by real people rather than just a geopolitical abstraction. This approach makes it genuinely interesting and also somewhat controversial. Reviews are split between listeners who appreciate hearing ground-level perspectives that mainstream media rarely captures, and critics who argue that tourism-focused content risks normalizing a regime with documented human rights abuses. Zoe addresses this tension directly in several episodes, which shows intellectual honesty even if you disagree with her framing. Episodes run varying lengths and come out weekly. The show launched in 2022 and has a 3.9-star rating from 18 reviewers. The best episodes feature guests who can speak to specific, granular details -- what the Pyongyang Film Festival is actually like, how communication works when you are being supervised, what the train ride across the Chinese border feels like. It fills a niche that no other North Korea podcast covers.