We’re not travel bloggers. But it seems that over the last 5 years, most posts we’ve written here have been about traveling! A good part of this is because as our two kids get older – and I routinely quip to the elder one in particular that they’re “no longer as cute anymore” – their lives increasingly become their own to lead. And to protect their privacy, I’ve also become conscious of what I publicly share about them. The other things I can still write about would be technological toys and gear I pick up. But on that front, as our smartphones increasingly become all-in-one devices, the need for me to acquire dedicated gear to meet specific needs has likewise been reduced.
That out of the way, we’ve chosen the vacation spot for our year-end holiday: and it’d be an 18-day trip to South Korea. We earlier prepared several broad itineraries, including this one to South Korea, and three others to Japan – including Kyushu, northern Honshu, and the Hiroshima-Okayama stretch. Between Japan and South Korea, my preference would have been a return again to Japan, but the missus and daughter won out this time on where to go, and they wanted South Korea.
So, we’ve fixed our travel dates, bought the flight tickets, and have been working out the usual details on where to go and how to get from place to place. There were several cities that we looked at for inclusion in the itinerary: Seoul and Busan – of course – then Daegu and Gwangju. Though South Korea itself isn’t a massive country, these four cities are not exactly near each other and each will involve several hours of travel by high-speed rail to get to. There are international flights arriving into Seoul and Busan, but the costs and dates on which the flights take place – particularly to Busan – and our preference for direct flights meant that the cheapest option would be to fly into Seoul, specifically Incheon, then get to the first city on our list. We finally decided to drop Gwangju on account that it was more than a little out of the way from Busan. Moreover, the main spot we were interested in there was a bamboo forest, which we’d already seen several of in our trips to Japan. An alternate city that was much closer to Busan was Ulsan, a seaside industrial city with its own charm. So we swapped out our planned 4D3N stay in Gwangju and replaced it with Ulsan.
So, our broad itinerary now looks like this:
- Landing into Incheon International Airport, then making our way to Seoul and onward to Busan via Korea Train Express (KTX).
- 6D5N in Busan, including the Songdo coastal area, Gamcheon, Yongdusan Park, Gwangbok-ro, Haeundae, Gwangalli Beach, and also a day trip to Geoje Island.
- 4D3N in Ulsan, including Taehwagang National Garden and Bamboo Forest, Daewangam Park and the coastal area around it, and the Ganwoljae Flame Grass Road hike if we can figure out how to get to the starting point!
- 10D9N in Seoul, including a range of urban places of interest, Alpaca World, Nami Island, the DMZ, and Vivaldi Park Snowy Land.
- Heading back home via Incheon International Airport.
We’ve also done reservations at several properties, including a mix of traditional hotel and Airbnb types. Airbnb stays seem to be a pretty well-entrenched industry in South Korea, and we found a good number of options. Our last trip to South Korea would be 18 years ago come December, and for our honeymoon. So we expect that a good number of things have changed in the country. In view of that, we’d be playing it safe itinerary-activities-wise, and have opted to find stays that are close to train stations and also the general areas where we’ll be exploring.
So, more to write about in the next few months!