Travel Planner South Korea
 

Hello! I am planning a 2 week trip to South Korea in June for my family of 4; We have two daughters in their early 20's. I am looking for some help with the planning and booking aspects given that I am so swamped between now and then. I really like working with companies that are either situated in country, or at least have on the ground presence in the country. Does anyone have any leads? We don't want to travel with a group, but rather find help putting together an itinerary, internal travel, some guides where appropriate, perhaps a day bike trip, etc... Thanks so much

That sounds like a fantastic trip you're planning for your family in South Korea! I also know the feeling of not wanting to join a big group tour in Seoul, as I have gone through it before. I have toured Seoul solo since then. I rented a bicycle in Yeouido and enjoyed riding on the trails beside the Han River. I enjoyed it that much that I eventually purchased a bicycle in Seoul, so I can ride whenever I want. It has been a while since I visited Seoul, but I still got friends in there. I could ask around for some local guides that offer private tours.

We spent 3 nights in Busan, 4 nights in Seoul, and we rented a car for 7 nights to see and stay at other places outside of cities. Korea is a very mountainous peninsula surrounded by rugged coastline. I am wondering two things:

Why do you feel a need to get a guide? Do you always travel that way?

Why is all the planning up to you? It seems like there are four adults involved.

Not a guide for the entire experience.. just looking for guidance.

How did you find driving there?

Driving was a breeze. We rented through Hertz at the Busan airport. The only strange thing was that Hertz did not offer me the option of GPS. But it came automatically with the car anyway. And thankfully with the Roman alphabet. I probably would have had more info in advance if I had rented from the Seoul Airport. The GPS there was very advanced:


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...4722a54cde.jpg

Notice how it shows you there's a tunnel ahead.... there are a lot of tunnels in Korea. I was more used to driving in Europe where you go around the mountains. Here you go through them, and it's easier to cover longer distances. When planning the trip, I didn't realize how quickly we'd get from one place to another.

Here is a link to my photo report of some of the off-the-beaten-track places I drove to:

https://www.fodors.com/community/asi...1718583/page2/

Renting a car is a great way to explore more of the country outside the cities. Driving there did seem pretty easy based on shelemm's experience.

A local guide probably isn't necessary for your whole trip, but they could be helpful for certain activities like food and cultural activities. I'd take a look at websites like https://gowithguide.com/korea - they have local English-speaking guides and can customize tours. Might be worth a browse for your dates in June.

It is also easy to see a lot of South Korea without a car -- you can check my trip report for some examples. https://www.fodors.com/community/asi...korea-1018842/

I take it we are to assume that hewholovestravel hasn't actually driven in South Korea? Interesting choice to comment on the ease based on second-hand information from 2012.

We did a 4 week trip in October 2022. A lot of our itinerary decisions were based on Kja's trip report and advice as well as advice from a Facebook Korea travel group, they are several such groups but only one was really useful for me.

I have posted a trip report here on our itinerary and experiences. We loved driving in South Korea.

We had 3 different rental car bookings, one for segments of our itinerary before Jeju, another on Jeju, and one for segments of our obituary after Jeju.

Happy to answer questions on specific places we visited.