Today, for the second act of my round up, I intend to just throw down some practical information about my trip.

If you are contemplating a trip to South Korea, it might help you, it might not, so take from it what you wish and if you have any questions or need more specifics about anything feel free to get in touch.

The first and most important thing I want to tell you is this – anyone can travel to South Korea.

It might not be a well-known destination for family holidays or anything, but if you are considering trying out an Asian culture, want to see and do things very far removed from your normal lifestyle, and you have a smidge of adventurous spirit, then Korea is a great place to hang out.

I also want to assure you that you can 100% travel solo in safety with no issues. I am proof of that, especially for the lone female travellers out there.

While I would recommend at least learning some basic polite and useful things to say in Korean (as you have seen from my travels even ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ will get you a long way!), I can assure you that it is still entirely possible to visit Korea and enjoy yourself only knowing English and having the ability to point, smile, and bow.

Right, I think that covers the main worries people have.

Now, let’s get to the big question everyone wants to know – just how much did this cost?

Well, all told, my three months in Korean cost me roughly $11,000. That’s everything all in.

Yup, I did that.

But hopefully you can tell that it was worth every penny.

Do you have to spend that much on a trip to Korea? Hell no.

It is entirely possible to trim down costs in all areas depending on your lifestyle requirements. While I didn’t stay in 5 star hotels every night and eat at fancy upmarket restaurants, I did do crazy stuff like fly first class and hire a car. And that sort of thing tends to add up.

So let’s take a look at the specifics of taking a trip to Korea, shall we?

From England, Korea is roughly 5,500 miles away. Several different airlines can take you there with a variety of different stop over points along the way. Some airlines are pricier than others. I flew with Finnair and would do so again with no issues. The plane and flight were good, the staff very nice, and there were no issues so to speak (my initial Heathrow delay was because of the airport, not the airline).

My first class/business class ticket round trip between Sept and Dec was $2,800 (£2,071). Now, while that is indeed a shed load of money, if you’ve checked out prices recently you can probably add another grand or so on top of that. My ticket was a fairly decent price because I booked early, COVID was still raging, and Korea was still enforcing a mandatory 10 day quarantine. Therefore, not many people were really that keen to go and no end was in sight to the pandemic. Not so anymore. I took a chance on booking and hoping everything panned out, which it did.

I bought 3 months of travel insurance from True Traveller (who I have used multiple times in the past, though thankfully never had to claim) which came to £274 and included an adventurer add on pack to cover me for all my hiking. I did also have about £400 worth of vaccinations (but some of those I specifically opted to have and weren’t required).

As I was planning on driving I also had to get an International Driving Licence from the Post Office, which is just a bit of cardboard they wrote my details on and charged me £5.50 for the privilege. But Korea does require it if you intend to rent a car. You have been warned.

Finally, just before I flew I paid £40 for my PCR test (yes, the one it turned out I didn’t need in the end) and I had to apply for a K-ETA to travel into Korea (the tourist visa you do online) and this was $8.30.

Just as an added point, everything I spent (except my insurance, vaccinations, permit, and PCR) was in dollars, and at the time I was in Korea, the US was enjoying a really good exchange rate which has now since dropped a bit. So bear that in mind when you see my costs.

Arriving in Korea I had to take another PCR test which cost $60. This has now been done away with, but I do believe you still have be fully vaccinated to visit and to fill in the COVID health form on arrival which is easiest done online (Korean Q-code website).   

I opted not to have a working phone in Korea for calls and texts (you can rent a SIM card for this if you want), I decided that I really only needed WiFi and ordered this online through Trazy for a monthly cost of $43. The have a long term WiFi egg (a little pack you carry around smaller than a mobile) and you simply renew it online every 30 days. You can collect and return it at the airport, and the booth is right next to the doors to exit. I fully recommend both Trazy and the device itself. It never once ran out of battery from the time I left my accommodation in the morning until about 10pm, and I had a signal everywhere (including the depths of forests and on mountaintops).  

Every accommodation I stayed at in Korea was booked through Airbnb. I toyed with the idea of using one of the other booking sites but every time I looked at places, the ones on Airbnb were either nicer, more suitable as they had parking, or often cheaper. I also liked the range of accommodation on Airbnb – from a hotel-type goshiwon (one room) to self-contained rooms at people’s houses to full sized apartments to cute hanoks.  

The total cost for all of my accommodation was just under $3,000. Costs can be brought down if you are opting to stay in one place for a longer period of time, for example my month-long stay in Seoul was only $430 because you get a cheaper day rate the long you stay (usually after a week a discount will be applied).

I will admit I booked places that I felt comfortable to stay in. When I originally envisioned my trip I thought I’d be in hostels and bunk rooms to keep the spending down, but that quickly went out the window when I started to enjoy having my own unique space and remembered that I can’t stand people snoring or making noise (plus you can never put a price on having your own bathroom).

Overall, with the exception of the one love motel in Gwangju, all of my accommodation ranged from good to fricken awesome. And just to prove it, here are some photos of some of them…

My two other largest stand-alone costs were my return flight to Jeju ($108) and, of course, my two month car rental ($2,071 and about another $500 for all my petrol, tolls, and parking).

Flights to and from Jeju are generally a bargain and well worth doing, a lot of locals will even just go for a weekend given the cheap price. I booked with Jeju Air and would be happy to fly with them again, no issues at all and very nice helpful staff.  

My car rental was through Lotte and I collected and returned my car at Gimpo Airport. This worked for me not only because of my returning Jeju flight (I picked up the car when I landed), but also the ease of transportation to and from the airport in general from the middle of Seoul. Other locations would have been more difficult to access easily.

Again, thumbs up for Lotte. Booking the car was done online; the site was in English, I created an account, picked a suitable car, made sure I selected the option for an English GPS, and confirmed. I didn’t have to pay anything up front; they didn’t take any payment until I collected the car.

Collecting the car made me slightly nervous, just due to the fact that renting a car is a pretty big deal anyway given the responsibility of not damaging it, signing a contract for it etc., but to then throw in the fact you are doing this with broken Korean and English is a smidge worrying. But it all worked out. They gave me some written instructions in English, checked my licence, and gave me a key.

Returning it was just as simple. The only heads up I will give you is that if you get any type of ticket while driving, or go through a toll and don’t (or can’t) pay, you will get the bill for this eventually. I had two charges made on my credit card from Lotte almost a month after I returned to England and figured they were for tolls where there wasn’t a pay option (I emailed Lotte and they immediately confirmed this was the case).

So yes, full recommendation for using Lotte for a car. And if it makes you any less nervous, Lotte rent-a-car is the Korean arm of Hertz.    

Well, by this point we’ve tallied up about $8,500.

Therefore, I can tell you that the remaining $2,500 was used for food and fun. I can’t really break it down any more than that (without trawling through all my charges) but it works out to about $30 per day. Of course, some days I didn’t spend any money (blogging days, visiting the library, walking around etc.), and then some days I spent shed loads (buying pottery, buying k-pop stuff, restaurants etc.). So it all evened out in the wash.

In order to blow through all of this money, I basically used my credit card. I can confirm that both American and British credit cards work in 98% of the places I went to (yup, looking at you there Korea National Park Service). Also, as long as you preload them before you leave, there is no problem using banking apps to help you pay your cards off as you go.

Part of my total money count was in cash – I took with me about $1,300 worth of won when I left the UK. I will also now give a shout out to Manor FX who I exchanged my money with. They had the best rate around, but you do have to have to give them the money through a bank transfer upfront and that feels rather nerve-wracking. They are 100% a legitimate company and changed my cash and then delivered it insured and signed for through the post (next day delivery). My only word of warning is this – if you are using them to change a decent amount of won (anything over $500 worth I would say), call them first and see what they have on hand. It’s not a popular currency it seems. I phoned them beforehand and the lady was very honest and said they didn’t have enough won in stock and it would take a week to get it, but I had to place my order and pay first. I did so, and it locked in the exchange rate I wanted. As soon as they located the cash, they emailed me to confirm the date I wanted it sent, and then provided the delivery details for the next day delivery.  Again, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them a second time.

Hmm.

Well, that’s really all I can think of to make you aware of financially.

If you are heading to South Korea, I encourage you to plan well ahead of time. There is so much to see and do. Probably my hardest bit of going was narrowing down what I felt I most wanted to achieve while I was there, so I wasn’t wasting time and effort aimlessly.

For a first time trip, get a map and google ‘most popular things to do in Korea’. Pick the things that most sound like you. Then think more about yourself and what you like and start googling those things too. You should be able to find most of what you need to know on English sites, but you’ll get even further if you can google in Hangeul too.

Make sure you check all of those pesky specific entry requirements on the government websites for travel (like does your passport have enough time left on it, when do you need to apply for your K-ETA, required vaccinations etc.).

I made sure I booked my first accommodation and WiFi ahead of time and looked up directions on how to use the metro to get where I was going, so that when I got to Incheon I already felt prepped to go and not panicked. Just having that first day set in my mind really helped things to go smoothly.

And really, that’s all I can offer you.

If you plan to take a trip, I hope you have a fantastic time! It honestly was the best journey of my life. I wouldn’t change anything I did (well, apart from checking Instagram more regularly when in the airport…). And I definitely plan to return to the country again with a whole new adventure in mind.

All that’s really left is to say thank you for coming along with me on my travels through South Korea. I hope that even if you have no desire to ever visit the country personally, that you have at least enjoyed seeing what it is like and learning a little about the culture. Thank you for putting up with every hike and every k-drama moment and all of my ramblings.

Maybe I will see you again in the future…. 안녕히 계세요.  🙂