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Itinerary: North Korea: Off the beaten track
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You don’t get much more off the beaten track than North Korea itself, but if you’re determined to see parts that no one else has seen then there are some options. Of course, you’ll still have to be on a tour (or at least with two guides) but you can really get out and see places few others do.
While you’ll fly or take the train to Pyongyang, there’s still a huge amount in the city to see which isn’t usually included on tours: request the zoo, a trip to the shooting gallery, the film studios and the three revolutions exhibit, for example. From Pyongyang, a charter plane can fly you up to Paekdusan (Mt Paekdu) for a visit to Korea’s holy mountain and the magnificent crater lake Chon, mythically associated with the anti-Japanese struggle and the birth of Kim Jong Il.
Returning by plane to Pyongyang having seen one of the remotest areas of the country, move on to the little visited east coast of the country. Overnight in the major port city of Wonsan and from there a trip into the beautiful Kumgangsan is possible. If you really want to go the whole hog, a flying visit (again, by charter plane only unless you enter overland from China) to the ‘Special Free Trade Zone’ of Rajin-Sonbong is about as different as you can get. You’re pretty certain not to meet anyone else who has been to this oddest area of an extremely odd country.
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