Travel Tips

Korea Travel Tips

1. http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/1011_Plan%20Your%20Trip.jsp  This is the best website to look up information. If you go under the Attractions tab and then Events, you can find out what fest is currently happening.
2. http://info.korail.com/2007/eng/eng_index.jsp You can book your train tickets online. You will need your passport to reserve the seat, and at the train station when you pick up the tickets. This site is in English and is very easy. A must if you are taking the train on a Saturday! You can book it on Friday and know you will have seats. Also, if you are a family of 4 you can sit together and turn the seats to face each other!
3. It will always be crowded!  It doesn't matter if you go on a weekday somewhere, it will be crowded! Just prepare yourself ahead of time to waiting in lines, traffic, and bumping into people. The only exception is if you are EARLY to places. If you are the first one there, you might have some room to move :)
4. Nothing opens early. Korea is called land of the morning calm because you CAN'T do anything early in the morning. Most stores open around 10 or 11:00 am. However, they do stay open until 10:00 or 11:00 pm.
5. Expect to be frustrated at some point during your trip. This may sound like a very pessimistic statement, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't travel. However, because we are like children here who can't read, things are very confusing! At some point you might be slightly lost, be within 1 block of the place you are looking for and can't find it, have a hard time finding something you can eat, or have someone be rude to you. If you expect these problems to arise, you are not surprised and can handle them better.
6. BRING SNACKS. Take a small snack for each person travelling. There are a lot of places to eat in Korea, however at some point in our trip we always find ourselves hungry without anything around to eat. Throw some granola bars or apples or something in your purse or bag and it will please even the most savage beast! Sometimes it even provides you with food to feed fish at a koi pond at a palace.
7. Buy a good Korean atlas, even if you have a GPS. The roads are changing here all the time. My GPS doesn't have some major interstates on it because it is about 4 years old. Nothing replaces a map when you are travelling here. When preparing to go somewhere new, sometimes we rely on the GPS, Korean atlas, subway maps, Google Earth maps, AND my husbands memory of the roads when he flew over them. Five different sources may seem excessive, but sometimes needed.
8. If a Korean tries to befriend you, be excited! The Koreans love to talk to us. Teenage girls will shout out to my daughters about how beautiful they are and there are times my husband gets told he is very handsome and they love him! Men will tell men they are handsome. It is not a cultural taboo here, no one is being gay, they are just good at complimenting. They are a society that says what they think. Sometimes it goes the other way and they can seem rude. I've had to put some people in line when they rub my daughters rounded belly or point out blemishes on my face. However, some of our best experiences here have been with our Korean friends. Andrew, our friend who my husband met while skiing, speaks wonderful English and is very fun to hang out with. He just started talking to Matt while skiing, they exchanged numbers and now they are good friends. We met another friend Mr. Kim as he drove us home one night when we got stuck at a train station because it was late and the train just stopped, EVERYBODY got off the train, at a station 25 minutes from our town! Mr. Kim drives a taxi, speaks English, and has since then taken our whole family fishing, we've dined at his house, and he's been to ours. Koreans can be so kind and generous and getting to know their world is an amazing cultural experience.

GET OUT THERE AND ENJOY KOREA!!