If you happen to’re studying this, you’ve already booked your flights to South Korea and are actually within the last levels of planning your journey. This can be three to 6 months earlier than you fly out for a few of you, whereas others could also be leaving in lower than per week. As you get nearer and nearer to your departure date, this stage turns into more and more thrilling.
Our first model of this essay (4 weeks earlier than flying to Seoul) started with our youngest son beginning a countdown on our household calendar.
Our goal with each bit of writing is to make the journey planning course of as easy and pleasurable as attainable. Our strategies for touring to South Korea are helpful for all vacationers, whether or not you’re backpacking, going alone, within the center floor, or on a luxurious trip. Test it out to be sure you’re totally ready to go earlier than your journey in an effort to give attention to having a very good time.
Suggestions for Visiting Korea
Beneath are our really useful pre-departure journey tricks to be sure you are totally ready on your South Korean journey, in an effort to spend extra time having enjoyable.
1. Necessities for a Korean Passport and a Vacationer Visa.
The very first thing I’d advocate is to examine to see whether or not you could have a passport with at the least six months of remaining validity past your deliberate date of departure from South Korea. Whereas the timeline varies relying in your nationality, having a passport with six months of validity is a secure guess. You must also have a Korean visa issued by the Korean embassy or consulate in your nation.
With regards to South Korea’s visa necessities, issues can range fairly a bit primarily based on the place you’re from. The excellent news is that there are 107+ international locations which might be a part of a Visa Waiver Settlement. Folks from these nations could enter South Korea for tourism and not using a visa for 30 days to 90 days relying on their nationwide passport or official/diplomatic go. Solely holders of formal or diplomatic passes originating from sure international locations are permitted entry into these territories.
2. Lodging in South Korea.
If you happen to haven’t already booked your lodging in South Korea, I like to recommend making reservations roughly three months earlier than you allow. Throughout peak journey instances or if vital occasions are scheduled, you might must guide additional forward. For South Korea, I like to recommend utilizing Reserving.com (which can take you to Seoul’s lodging choices).
Be sure to have the right deal with data for every lodging reservation you’ve made. Korean avenue names and numbers are onerous to know, so double-check that you’ve the deal with saved in your telephone’s GPS software program as effectively. The Kakaomap app is our most popular methodology of travelling round Korea, as it’s obtainable for each iOS and Android.
You may additionally pre-load the lodging purposes out of your lodging websites together with your account and reserving information in your telephone. They’ll typically provide a map selection to help you in finding your lodging.
3. Journey Insurance coverage in Korea.
On condition that journey insurance coverage is comparatively low cost compared to the general price of your journey, it’s undoubtedly value getting. Assist in medical and dental emergencies, delayed or rescheduled flights, substitute of lacking or stolen baggage, stress-free car rent, and conditions the place you’ve been discovered accountable for somebody’s accidents or property harm are all cases the place journey insurance coverage can help you.If you happen to haven’t already, now could be the time to buy journey insurance coverage. Though most insurance coverage just isn’t obtainable after you depart, there are exceptions. When you’ve got any pre-existing medical points, you will need to act rapidly; some insurance coverage firms will refuse to cowl your bills. Listed below are just a few examples of conditions after we had been grateful for our journey insurance coverage. We had been capable of acquire a brand new digital camera after somebody stole our costly one on an Italy journey and we had been compensated for the price of the stolen merchandise by means of our journey protection plan On our journey to New Zealand, we encountered yet one more instance of how useful journey insurance coverage could be. The primary Christchurch earthquake occurred one month earlier than we had been scheduled to fly to New Zealand in 2010, and we needed to make a number of modifications to our reservation. We had been fortunately capable of acquire reimbursements (in a single case, a number of months later) however would have wanted our journey insurance coverage if we hadn’t been in a position to take action. Our third story is a few journey to Japan. When our youngest baby acquired hen pox in Japan, we needed to pay US$320 for drugs since most of it was coated by our insurance coverage. In case your child wanted to be hospitalized overseas with out journey insurance coverage, the costs would have been prohibitive.
4. Korail Go
When visiting South Korea, many guests purchase a Korail go (a particular rail go for vacationers). Many individuals buy this go as a result of it makes touring all through South Korea fast, reasonably priced, and handy. A Korail go additionally comes with quite a few different benefits, together with free or discounted entry to quite a lot of museums, sights, and excursions in addition to reductions on quite a lot of inns and duty-free retailers. One other vital benefit of buying your Korail go earlier than you arrive in South Korea is that you’ll have one much less factor to fret about whereas planning when you get there.
The principle benefit of getting a Korail Go is that it makes altering your seat reservations a breeze. We had booked seats to go from Busan to Seoul, however on account of a storm passing by means of Busan we determined to cancel our journey to Busan and return early to Seoul. We had been capable of merely cancel our earlier seat reservations and make new ones with the Korail go, with out having to get any a reimbursement for the person tickets.
5. Public Transport Playing cards – Seoul and Different Massive Cities’ Native Transport
A faucet on faucet off native transport card is one other incredible buy to make on your go to to South Korea. Seoul and different cities like Busan’s public transportation service is the only, quickest, and most economical methodology to journey round..
A public transportation card that means that you can faucet on and off may be a helpful addition to your South Korea tour. Seoul and different cities like Busan’s public transportation system is essentially the most handy, quickest, and cheap method to get round.
A Railplus Transport card or a T-money card are the most typical types of transportation playing cards in South Korea. The Cashbee Card, which can be utilized in Busan, is one various, however you might use your Rail Go Plus and T-money playing cards in Busan in addition to all different native transport all through South Korea’s cities.
