North Korea In Photos: One Man's Tour of The Hermit Kingdom

Elliott is a golfer and a traveler by nature. He set up a blog and wants to visit every country with a camera nearby to document the experience. He recently traveled to North Korea and managed to bring back more than 100 photos of the country.

Elliott's blog, Earth Nutshell, includes 100 photos of North Korea and captions regarding his stay in the country. Elliot traveled to Wonsan, Kaesong, Haeju, Pujon County, Nampo and the DMZ. "Upon leaving North Korea, the experience took some time to sink in. I had been affected by that country. There is nowhere else in the world like it. It's simply inconceivable and put crudely: scary. North Korea is parallel to our freedom in real time. It's not a zoo, it's not a 'facade,' certainly not a novelty; it's real life. Happening right now," Elliott said in a Reddit AMA. He spent 16 days in the country and toured many sites that are not part of a usual sanctioned visit.

Propaganda is hard to escape in North Korea, and there are slogans practically everywhere. There are massive monuments dedicated to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Cars are rare and used by the elite and high-ranking government officials. There are modern conveniences, but everything is carefully regulated by the government. There are cell phones, but they do not connect to the Internet.

In the Reddit AMA, Elliott said many people in Pyongyang know there is massive censorship in the country, while those living outside North Korea's capital are unaware of what's happening outside of the country. "I am convinced the average civilian is detached from the outside world as remote civilizations of the past. They can't even go to Pyongyang. There are military checkpoints all through the country preventing locals from even traversing between provinces; it's mental," Elliott said.

Despite the carefully scripted process, a tourist can learn a lot about the country and what daily life is like in North Korea. "[We] travel between places via bus; North Korea doesn't exactly have the luxury in choosing between roads between locations other than in Pyongyang. You see daily life go by as normal, the farming, the villages, the people walking between them carrying water buckets over their heads akin to Africa, and people cycling 50km [approximately 31 miles] in silk suit jackets with no shirts. You see the apartment blocks, the desolate lonely towns that have no infrastructure," Elliott said.

Kim Jong Un is everywhere and those pictures of him pointing and looking at things are very real.