You can find a list of all my Korea favorites by downloading NAVERMap onto your iPhone.
Welcome the to the second installment of my series on Korea (first installment here). As promised, this entry will be about the logistics of our trip, which I have organized into five sections: 1) The Prep; 2) The Itinerary; 3) The Sleep; 4) The Budget; 5) The Takeaways.
FYI, we’re not huge travelers so this post is not meant to be all-encompassing from a travel standpoint. I also dislike how much redundancy is out there with Internet travel —it’s truly exhaustive! Thus please refer to the links I’ve included below if you’d like more info. I hate to waste anyone’s time.
I had a few overarching considerations as I organized the trip, mainly from my experience backpacking thru Europe in college. The first one was that the fun of the trip was the trip in and of itself—the time together with family, figuring out how other people live their daily lives (i.e., my kids loved the subway), trying different kinds of foods, and just taking the whole experience in. It would not be in seeing everything on the list (for me) or eating every kind of Korean street food (for my kids), and definitely not stressing about those things! I think travel’s more about what happens in between the big attractions.
Second, time is of the essence when traveling on a tight schedule. Thus spend less on fancy meals and souvenirs and the like and more on saving time—you won’t regret it! Korean food is not meant to be fancy anyway.
1) The Prep: Read a guide and download apps.
2) The Itinerary: Set a rough itinerary of one major attraction a day. This allows time to wander and explore as you wish. It also helps ease jet-lag.
3) The Sleep: Time is of the essence! And we didn’t need a kitchenette.
4) The Budget: Under $10k for 11 days total, incl. travel
5) The Takeaways: We’re so glad we went!
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