PYONGYANG, North Korea — Monty Anderson got word that the trip was on two weeks after rushing home to California from Ukraine for emergency open-heart surgery. He didn't ask his doctor if it was OK to take another trip so soon. He \o7told \f7him he was going.
Eighty-year-old Joan Youmans heard about it when she picked up her phone messages after a trip to Indonesia. She canceled a few doctors' appointments and booked immediately.
When Joe Walker learned the trip was a go, he said he "just gave them my credit card number and told them to fill in the amount." Cost him seven grand, he figures.
Such is the allure of North Korea to the "extreme traveler."
Opportunities for American tourists to visit the secretive state that makes no secret of its loathing for the U.S. are mighty tough to come by. A North Korean visa for an American is like round-the-clock electricity here in the North Korean capital: not impossible, but rare enough to be appreciated when it unexpectedly arrives.
"It's the hardest place to get to," said Bill Altaffer, who should know. Altaffer is the world's most traveled man, according to the mosttraveledman.com website -- "others look it up, we've been there," says the recorded message on his home phone. The website doesn't just rank by number of countries visited. It counts territories, autonomous regions, enclaves and provinces too, from Abkhazia to Zhejiang. Altaffer, a retired schoolteacher, has hit more of them than anyone.
But not North Korea. It was the only place on the globe that had thwarted his attempts to visit -- "except for Wake Island, maybe," he said, referring to the U.S. Pacific territory that is a restricted military installation. "But I can live without Wake Island. North Korea was the big one."
Like the other Americans, Altaffer had a standing order with the Santa Monica-based Travelers' Century Club to go should the chance ever arise. So this fall, when the North Korean regime decided to issue a handful of visas to Americans for reasons it typically never bothered to explain, Altaffer, Anderson, Youmans, Walker and globe-trotter Don Parrish found themselves on a rare adventure for Americans.
North Korea is not everyone's idea of a holiday destination. But these are not your stereotypical Americans abroad, looking for the nearest McDonald's. They long ago gave up bringing home souvenirs. Nor are they interested in just touching a toe to an airport tarmac to tick a destination off the list.
