Why travel to South Korea?

South Korea is an underrated family travel gem.

Everyone and their mum wants to travel to Japan to experience hi-tech living, exotic tastes and luscious Far-Eastern landscapes but don’t knock South Korea a thriving and dynamic nation on the peninsular just next door.

If its unusual cuisine, fascinating history and quirky local traditions you’re after but at a more affordable price then South Korea is definitely somewhere that should be high on your family travel bucket list.

Ignore the latest antics of North Korea, South Koreans have been living with the threat of nuclear missiles and land invasions for almost 70 years now.  Although tensions occasionally flare up, South Korea is one of the safest countries I’ve ever lived in and visited.

Why travel to South Korea with young children?

South Korea is a first-world country with all the amenities and conveniences that families will need. From world-class hospitals, high-speed trains and hotels for every budget, South Korea is highly accessible for families.

Whilst South Korean cities are filled with great museums, parks and of course, shopping. There are lots of activities if you prefer the great outdoors with numerous national parks, hundreds of kilometres of coastline and fascinating fortresses and palaces all over the country. The weather is seasonal meaning beautiful blossom in the spring, crisp leaves in autumn, snowfall in winter and of course, lots of time at the beach in the summer.

Isn’t it really hard travelling around South Korea as a young family?

Ten years ago, I taught English in South Korea for a year and LOVED it. However, I was a little unsure about travelling around with my young family. Back in my youthful days, Korea was more about nightlife than day trips and I normally had Korean-speaking friends with me to help smooth out any language barriers.

After visiting with kids, I can honestly say that South Korea really is a family-friendly travel destination. The South Korean government is on a mission at the moment to make public spaces more family-friendly. Many stations, museums and shopping malls will have a nursing room just for mums and babies. Most museums are wheel-chair and stroller friendly and many have dedicated, interactive and educational children’s exhibitions.

What we honestly loved about South Korea with kids.

Korean Barbeques

Barbeques are the ultimate family-friendly food. Sure, you have to keep your little ones well away from any flames and hot coals but there is something incredibly social and communal about cooking food at the table, sharing dozens of little side-dishes, experimenting each time how you wrap up your meat, what dipping sauce you use. The great thing is children can pick and choose their own food (a habit that miraculously encourages my kids to try more new foods).

Great Public Transportation

As well as an intensive and cheap bus/coach network throughout the whole country, South Korea boasts some of the fastest trains in the world on the KTX line. With young children, it’s normally worth the extra money to get from A to B as quickly as possible.

Children’s Museums

Almost every museum we visited in South Korea had a dedicated children’s exhibition. Although only the headings on displays were in English, it doesn’t take a degree in Korean to work out how to do jigsaw puzzles or get dressed up as a king. This thoughtful touch really made our sightseeing days so much more family-friendly. Our favourites ‘children’s museums’ were at the Korean Folk Museum in Seoul, the War Museum in Seoul, the Poo Museum in Suwon (yes, really) and the Gyeongju National Museum. Not only were all the exhibitions interactive and child-orientated but there were also child-sized toilets and nursing rooms with cots and bottle warmers.

What challenged us when travelling around South Korea with kids?

Finding Accomodation

To be very frank, we found finding accommodation in South Korea that suited our needs and budget really time-consuming. Except for on Jeju Island where we stayed in an idyllic log cabin LINK our accommodation choices were always a little unsuitable. One factor in this was that Korean families tend to sleep on the heated floor– called ondol- often all together in one room. Our unruly toddlers are exceptionally bad at settling down for sleep in the same room and their father is exceptionally unkeen to sleep on the floor so this cut down many accommodation options for us.

Not many children around during the week

Most South Korean children spend a long time at school and doing extracurricular activities. This meant for us that we were often the only family with children –bar school outings – at museums and attractions on weekdays.

Being the only family around with two young and boisterous pre-schoolers got us plenty of stares and glares. In particular, we felt older people (especially taxi drivers and fellow passengers) didn’t react warmly to our kids. That said, we, of course, encountered some lovely older Koreans just in general our welcome wasn’t as warm as in Thailand or Vietnam.

The Language Barrier

I can read and say about 50 words in Korean probably more than your average tourist and even then I had A LOT of challenging moments. Many young South Koreans will speak some English but much of the older generations won’t understand a word (why should they? After all you are visiting THEIR country). From restaurants to bus terminals, we had a lot of stressful moments trying to use sign language whilst being tucked at by a hungry toddler and trying to catch an escaping 4-year-old!

As an appalling bad linguist, I find languages that use different alphabets doubly confusing. I suppose that we should have been more tech-savvy and downloaded more translator apps on our phones but we didn’t have any data… more on that below…

South Korea does technology very well- but in its own way.

As a family of backpackers, our absolute must-have gadget is a mobile phone. (It wasn’t 6 years ago when we backpacked around the world pre-kids but it is now mostly due to Peppa Pig and getting things quickly).

In most countries, we just pop a local SIM in our phone at the airport and off we go. Not in South Korea which uses the WCDMA 2100 MHz network and it’s a bit of lottery if your phone will work. If it doesn’t you can either rent one for the duration of your stay or use your phone to just connect to WiFi (as we chose to do).

In most countries, we use ATMs to take out cash upon arrival at the airport. In South Korea, it took 60 minutes and 3 cards until we finally had enough money for a taxi.

In most countries, we use Grab or Uber to get cars. Not in South Korea, they use Kakao.

In most countries, we use Google Maps to help us walk or drive from A to B. Not in South Korea, it doesn’t really work so they use Naver Maps instead.

Even in this globalised world, you can definitely feel like a digital foreigner in South Korea!

Despite all these quirks South Korea is an awesome family travel destination.

It’s unique, it’s different and it’s family-friendly.

South Korea should be as high on family travel bucket lists as its famous neighbour, Japan. Korea is cool, modern and trendy (just think K-Pop) but it’s also got deep layers of history, beautiful landscapes and of course, a unique and delicious cuisine.

If you’re feeling inspired to plan a family holiday to South Korea, don’t forget to check out our posts on The Perfect Day in Gyeongju with Toddlers, Why you should stay in a Log Cabin on Jeju Island and our Top Tips for Seoul with a Toddler.

South Korea and Women’s Rights:

The Shocking Truth

How can a modern and advanced country like South Korea find itself ranked an appalling 116 out of 144countries for gender equality by the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Global Gender Gap Index?

Women have been able to vote in South Korea since 1948, Park Geun-Hye was their first female president from 2013-17 and all young girls are entitled to free education. On the surface, things look good but when the WEF dug deep into the data it became clear that there is no equal pay act, abortions are illegal without consent from a husband (or a court) and sexual harassment is rarely reported.

In June and July 2018, 22,000 South Korean women marched through the streets of Seoul demanding gender equality and more support from the government. The burning issue at the moment is that of Spy Cams. Tiny cameras are being hidden by criminals in all sorts of places and used to take pictures of women in toilets or up their skirts as they walk along the street. These photos are then uploaded on to the internet in an awful abuse of female privacy. The women marching are concerned that the government isn’t taking enough action nor supporting them against this disgusting crime.

Good luck to all the women who marched and we hope the government listens to your concerns and takes action quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Join the World for a Girl Community! Have you travelled to South Korea with young children? Do you have any advice or tips to add about travelling in South Korea as a family? Can you tell me more about women’s rights in South Korea?