A young ‘hobby traveller’ describes trips through the secretive lands of North Korea, Eritrea and Turkmenistan – and offers tips for navigating hermetic borders

Totalitarian travels – by the man who's been to every country in the world

North Korea “is screwed up in every aspect”, says Gunnar Garfors who, aged just 37, became the youngest “hobby traveller” to visit every country in the world. “Staying there too long will mess with your mind.”

For over a decade the Norwegian journalist has doggedly gained access to 198 countries – five more than the United Nations (UN) official tally, as he included Palestine, the Vatican, Kosovo, Western Sahara and Taiwan.

As a hobby traveller, Garfors explains that he makes the trips in his spare time, and isn’t paid to do so. He insists he doesn’t have a lot of money, but has prioritised his globe-trotting over a “wife, a car or a CD collection” – though he has since written a book about his experiences.

‘The Stans’

Garfors developed a taste for adventure in 2004 after a trip through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. He says he was enchanted by the former Soviet states of Central Asia and decided to tick off the three other “Stans” before setting off for the rest of the world.

“Turkmenistan is number two on the crazy list,” says Garfors. “I could walk around more freely than in North Korea, but it was very apparent I was being watched.” The country consistently sits at the bottom of global freedom rankings, in the company of North Korea and Eritrea.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkmenistan’s Darvaza Crater, otherwise known as the ‘door to hell’. Photograph: flydime/Getty Images/Flickr RF

The equestrian-mad nation has recently started to open up to tourists who can visit the so-called “dictator’s disneyland” in the capital, Ashgabat, which boasts a 20m statue of president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov sitting astride a golden horse.

The country’s other attractions include a burning pit at “the door to hell” in the Darvaza crater, and rarely seen stretches of the silk road, the region’s ancient trade route.

Africa’s hermetic borders

In contrast, Garfors described Eritrea as a “truly amazing country” hindered by military conscription and a heavy-handed government – factors which are thought to contribute to the unprecedented exodus of up to 5,000 citizens every month.

Gaining access wasn’t easy. The first time he applied for a visa from the embassy in Stockholm he waited for six weeks before getting his passport back with a note: “Hellow! Your visa application rejected (sic).”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Garfors’ first attempt at gaining access to Eritrea. Photograph: Gunnar Garfors

He tried again, this time including a note about “how much I had heard about the country and why I wanted to visit”. It worked, and he made the trip in 2012.

But Garfors explains that Eritrea, now nicknamed “Africa’s North Korea”, wasn’t the hardest country on the continent to access. Angola, also known for human rights abuses, was harder still.

“They actually refused to return my passport because I made a mistake on the form,” he says. “But I was following instructions on a website that hadn’t been updated since 2003.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A lone attraction during Garfors’ short stopover in Angola. Photograph: Gunnar Garfors

Eventually, passport back in hand, Garfors booked a flight that had a 13-hour layover in the capital Luanda: “I walked from the airport and had breakfast in a bar that was playing soft porn, refused their offer to display something harder and walked back to the airport.”

He has since said that Angola is the hardest country to visit in Africa, closely followed by Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea.

Thanks to his ambitious travels Garfors has become adept at negotiating with passport officials. “I never fill [the forms] out wrong anymore,” he says, before sharing a few other tricks of the trade.

He explains that it’s almost always easier to get a visa from a neighbouring country, which is how he got in to Equatorial Guinea. It’s usually cheaper to travel overland, as he did with Turkmenistan, and “sometimes its just boils down to getting the right official.”

Jogging in North Korea

Garfors developed his rules for what constitutes a “proper travelling experience” early on. “I think you need a story to tell, you must have been outside your vehicle or train, or airport,” he explains.

“You also need to have had a conversation,” he adds, lamenting associations like the exclusive Century Travelling Club, for people who’ve been to 100 countries, but which allows its members to count layovers or very brief stops in their official tally.

Garfors says that his travelling experiences challenge some common misconceptions about some of the world’s most closed-off states. Getting into North Korea, for example, was not the incredible feat that some might expect, with its small but developed travel and tourism market.

However, the regime left Garfors frustrated when he visited in 2009: “I don’t enjoy being told what to do and I don’t like guided tours.”.

How do I get … to North Korea Read more

He did however manage to organise a run free from his tour guide. “We got him drunk on liquor the night before,” and the man, hungover, sent the driver to watch over them in his place, Garfors explains.

The driver, not a fitness pro, struggled to keep up with the Norwegian. Running along the Taedong river in Pyongyang, Garfors says he attracted “surprised looks” from locals as he raced solo along the bank.

After all those miles travelled, Garfors almost found lasting love with a girl in neighbouring South Korea, but he explains it didn’t quite work out. “The funny thing about South Korea is that they take wedding photos months before the wedding, so I have the photos, I’m just not married.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The official photo from Garfor’s wedding that was never to be. Photograph: Gunnar Garfors

Check your privilege

Another traveller to complete the complete world tally, former playboy editor Albert Podell, was recently accused of being culturally tone deaf after writing a piece for The Atlantic about the hardest places to visit.

“There’s a tragic irony here,” wrote Nadine Ajaka, also for The Atlantic. “As Podell describes the incredible feat of entering places like Sudan and North Korea, for much of the world, the United States is one of the most difficult and expensive nations to get into.”

Garfors insists he recognises his privilege as the holder of a Norwegian passport, arguably one of the easiest in the world for foreign travel.

He explains that one of the main takeaways from his adventures was that most people “hadn’t even heard of this country of Norway, that we think is the centre of the universe.”

“If you don’t become more humble in that process, then there’s something wrong with you.”