Adventurous Man Visits Both North Korea and South Korea to Experience the Difference Between the Two

In August 2016, Lithuanian world traveler Jacob Laukaitis went on a seven day guided trip to North Korea, where he found that he didn’t have free reign over his movements within the very restricted country nor did he have any idea whether the sights he was seeing were staged. One year later in 2017, Laukaitis decided to travel back to the peninsula but go to South Korea instead. Once in Seoul, Laukaitis found that his experience in South Korea could not be more different than his experience in North Korea.

One year ago I went on a strictly guided 7 day-tour in North Korea where they took away my passport and did not allow me to explore anything on my own. North Korea was definitely the weirdest country I had ever visited and throughout that trip I kept wondering what life was like in the neighboring South Korea, because it used to be the same country just over 60 years ago. To answer my questions, this year I traveled to South Korea and made this video, where I compare my time in the North and my time in the South. I still have a lot of questions about the whole situation, but one thing was clear – the daily lives of the Korean people couldn’t be any more different than they are right now.

Laukaitis’ 2016 trip to North Korea