Rick says: "....Americans who "travel as a political act" can have the time of their lives and come home smarter--with a better understanding of the interconnectedness of today's world and just how our nation fits in...." I couldn't agree more! This inspired me very recently to travel to the world's most isolated country: North Korea.
For many years I assumed it was illegal for American to travel there; just like Cuba. A couple years ago I attended the Toronto Film Festival, and attended the screening of the first western film allowed to be filmed inside North Korea: Comrade Kim Goes Flying At the Q&A after the screening one of the British producers mentioned that he also runs a travel company and does tours there. After it was all over I struck up a conversation with him, mentioned my love for travel and wished I could join one of his tours. I was quite surprised when he told me Americans were in fact allowed to travel, no problem. He gave me his card with the url of his site, and I told him I would contact him soon. Soon turned out to be about 24 months:) But I was indeed able to join one of his company's tours in Jan. 2014.
It was very easy to get the North Korean visa all I had to do was provide a digital copy of the photo page of my passport, digital passport photo, and a simple visa application all of which was emailed to the tour company for processing. At no time did I have to surrender my passport; the visa is issued on a separate piece of paper. The company has it offices in Beijing and the flight to Pyongyang originates there, so I also had to also get a Chinese Visa on my own.
Before the tour begins all participants are required to attend an orientation meeting at the offices in Beijing the evening before the flight. It's here where you get to meet the tour company rep who will accompany us into North Korea for the entire tour. He laid out the ground rules of traveling in NK and some pointers on how we were supposed to behave etc. But he told us once we had raptor going with the official govt. minders things would be laid back for the most part...and that was very true.
Next morning we all met back at the offices for the bus to the airport to catch our 90 minute flight to Pyongyang. We flew on the national carrier Air Koryo, they used a very new Russian built jet. Flight was very enjoyable, my seatmate was a friendly North Korean gentlemen returning from business in China, he spoke excellent english and we had an enjoyable conversation about our two countries.
We arrive at Pyongyang airport, immigration was a snap, the officer was friendly and my US passport wasn't an issue. In fact at the long line at customs one of the officials noticed me holding my US passport and ushered me to the front of the line! Once everyone passed through customs we met our official minders and bus driver who would accompany us throughout the entire tour, and took us to the the hotel in the city center for our first group dinner.
At this point I should note that the tour company out of Beijing requires all participants to sign a non-disclosure agreement about what we see and do throughout the tour. NK bans most all journalists from visiting, so they will often pretend to be tourists and join tours like mine. The agreement is so the tour company doesn't fall out of favor with the government and get banned from the country...effecting their business. So in a public forum like this I can only talk in general terms about the tour.
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