The last time we stayed in an Airbnb property while on vacation was in Taiwan in Dec 2018. We largely avoided exploring this option for our Japan trips in the subsequent years. From what our research told us, there seems to be some resistance among the Japanese when it comes to their neighbours renting out their apartment units for short stays i.e. pretty much the same situation as in Singapore. This seems to be less of an issue in South Korea, so we really explored such short-stay apartments while preparing for our South Korea trip. Of the three cities we’re visiting, we readily found a pool of Airbnb apartments in Busan and Seoul that were suitably sized for our family of four, but not so much in Suncheon.
For privacy reasons, we’re not going to post the exact address or name of our Airbnb hosts for this trip. But if you’d like to find out who our hosts were, do contact us. That out of the way, here are the notes for our Busan Airbnb stay.
Our apartment in Busan was situated on the 9th floor and was a loft unit. The floor area of the unit was probably around 50 sqm or thereabouts, and it had two queen-sized beds – one on the ground floor, and the other at the loft level. The loft is accessible by a fairly steep set of stairs. But there are fixtures for you to hold onto, so it was pretty safe for both kids and adults to go up and down.
The apartment block is right beside Jungang Station, which itself is one stop south of Busan Station. So it was relatively central to the Gwangbok and BIFF areas, but not near Seomyeon and quite far from Haeundae. There is also a GS25 convenience store located on the ground floor of the apartment block, so getting necessities was as straightforward as taking the lift down.
For the room amenities: the unit has a large wall-mounted TV that looks like it’s about 55″ and supports YouTube and Netflix, a small kitchen area with a toaster, microwave oven, and a fairly large refrigerator. The parquet flooring of the unit was also heated – this was very welcomed for our winter vacation! Our host also supplied a number of electronic power socket adapters, and also a USB charging hub. We didn’t need this as we brought along our own, including a Chargeasap Zeus 280W GaN charger – the ultimate GaN charger – but the thoughtfulness was very appreciated.
The best thing about our Airbnb host was his kindness and also the level of care that was apparent from how he prepared his unit for guest stays. He provided very detailed instructions on how to operate the key appliances in the unit, including the digital door lock, shower, air-conditioning, and washing machine. There were five times as many bath towels as guests in our family – way more than we’d need! Our host also prepared several 2-litre mineral water bottles in the fridge and welcome fruits as well. Communication in English was very easy and our host was always very prompt in replying, and he even helped us navigate the express bus booking website so we could get our rides from Busan to Suncheon.
To note too: Koreans are big on recycling and proper disposal of trash, and our host also provided instructions on how to sort the different refuse items and where to bring them after our stay. The disposal bins were located at the basement level.
Lastly, we’d neglected to post pictures of the apartment when we checked in on Day 01: the pictures here were taken on Day 06 morning when we were checking out, so pardon the mess!
Summary: this property gets our unqualified recommendation. If you’re like us – a family of four travelling with kids – then this property and its host are really worth checking out.