South Korea Spring Trip 2018 Preparation
- Isabella Ayu
- Apr 14, 2018
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 15, 2018
Hi all! This is my first post :D In this post I will list down what you should prepare for your trip in South Korea.
Actually this is my very 1st trip to other countries and I did lots of research about this trip from blogs and youtube because I did a backpacker (without travel agent) and none of us have travel to South Korea before.
There are four things you should prepare before going to South Korea.
1. Passport
2. Visa
3. Flight Ticket
4. Accommodation
5. Pocket WiFi
1. Passport
This is the very first thing you should have when you will travel to other countries. Because it is like your identity when you enter to other countries. Currently we have two types of passport, Passport no-electronic (Ordinary Passport) and Passport electronic (E-Passport). Validity period of of Ordinary Passport usual maximum of 5 (five) years from the date of issuance while E-Passport applies for a lifetime. For those who have not have a passport, I suggest to create an E-Passport because you don't have to renew every 5 years and some countries have free visa if your have E-Passport like Japan.
You could apply for passport in nearest immigration office. Check details documents that you should prepare and immigration office location here .
2. Visa
The second things you should prepare is Visa. For some countries you should have this before entering their countries. Validity of Visa is shorter than passport especially when it comes for travel, mostly for a month. For some cases it's harder to get Visa than Passport. One of document that you should prepare is bank statement. Some said that you should have minimal amount on your bank statement and others said it's easier if you already travel to other county before. But it never said on their official website. Bank statement is to guarantee that you could travel safely without running out of money in South Korea.
You could check documents you should prepare for Visa here , amount you should prepare here , and download the application form here .
3. Flight Ticket
You can't miss this out, right?! If you plan for minimum budget, you could buy flight ticket long before on travel fair such as Garuda Travel Fair, Traveloka, Mister Aladin, and more. You should pay attention to when you want to take a trip and baggage info. If you want to buy the ticket on travel fair sometimes they don't sell for the best date, like if you want to enjoy Spring in Korea (usually on early April) they block the date or sometimes they sell the ticket for normal price. And for baggage, you should know weather you should buy for baggage or free.
Me & my friend really paid attention for travel fair because we want to have a good flight with minimum budget :D Thankfully we got best deal on Mister Aladin. I got Singapore Airlines for Economy Class just 5 millions IDR for round trip with 21 kg baggage free and full meal :p And we got the best date on early April (31st March 2018 to 8th April 2018) so we can enjoy the full cherry blossom in South Korea. Isn't that best deal?
4. Accommodation
This is the last thing you should prepare. I got the ticket on August 2017. Yeah it took us almost a year to go to South Korea. Since then we discussed lots where do we want to stay. In this tech era, you could easily make reservation for accommodation. You can find at Airbnb, Traveloka, booking.com, and more. At first we book too early, so we can get cheaper price and before people start to make reservation for good hotels. Just for your information, I traveled with one of my friend, Indar (Actually one more, but she could not made it since she have Bussiness Trip at the same time).
We got our first reservation with Airbnb. We got Line theme apartment on Jongno-gu after we watched vblogger, Ria SW, when she traveled in South Korea. We really fall in love with this apartment but as you could guess it's quite pricey since only three of us that will travel. So we plan only to stay for 3 days at this cute apartment. It cost $234.13 for 3 days. BUT, the nightmare was happened, our booking was cancelled by Airbnb. I asked the owner and she didn't know why our booking was cancelled by Airbnb. Airbnb didn't give official statement why our booking was cancelled. But thankfully they returned our payment around two weeks after the cancellation.
Accommodation is one of long discussion because we planned to Busan to see Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival (one of the best Cherry Blossom Festival in South Korea) and we don't know the exact date when it will be fully blossom. So we planned to stay 6 days in Myeongdong & 3 days in Busan. Again we booked for hotels and cancelled the reservation because one of my friend suddenly got a call for business trip in New Zealand.
Tips: It's better for you to make a reservation 2 months before your trip to minimize unexpected cancellation.
Below is our final accommodation details.
Source:
Tips for Accommodation:
Accommodation depends on how long you stay, how many people you travel with, amenities you want to have, and lastly and most important thing is the budget!
a. Hotel
Advantage:
Secure. The receptionist will serve you 24 hours.
Free breakfast. Most of hotels have free breakfast so you could save the budget. They usually serves breakfast for their guests. Usually they prepare bread, coffee, & tea for the breakfast.
Free brochure. You could easily find brochure about South Korea at hotels.
Disadvantage
Quite pricey. It's quite pricey if you want to have long nights at hotels with backpacker budget.
Limitation of amenities. You could not find dryer, iron, hanger, or kitchen at the hotel
b. Guest House
Advantage
The cheapest! You could save your budget if you stay at Guest House. They have kitchen too, so in case you want to cook Ramen or Indomie you could have it in time :)
Free breakfast.
Free brochure.
Disadvantage
Limitation of amenities. You could not find iron and heater here. So in case you're going there when it's winter or early spring, prepare yourself cold in the night.
c. Apartment
Advantage
Best deal. If you plan to travel more than 2 person, apartment is a good choices. The budget could be smaller the more people you plan to stay at one apartment.
Good Amenities. Many apartments gave good amenities such as dryer, iron, hanger, heater, and Pocket WiFi!! You could save your budget with free Pocket WiFi. You could easily cook if you feel hungry at the apartment too. And if you plan for long stay, you can bring some of your clothes and then use washer. So you could have big space on your luggage for your skin care shopping, right? :D
Disadvantage
Secure. One day we have notification from the owner that the security was on duty. So they asked us to stay for a while at the rooms / come late to the apartment (Thankfully we were on the outside that time). The owner also said not to open the door if the security ask to come to the room, which is strange. It's like we're illegal visitor, while we're not.
After we tried 3 different types of accommodation, I admit that apartment is the best choice while we stay there with the good amenities.
Tips:
If you plan to see Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival, I recommend you to go to Busan on early April. I heard that Busan is one of the first city to have cherry blossom in South Korea. And the festival only last for a week to fully bloom. If you don't want to be in crowded, better not to choose weekend when you are going there.
If you plan to stay at apartment, it's better to choose the apartment with free Pocket WiFi. It can save your budget :)
5. Pocket WiFi (Egg WiFi)
South Korea is known to have fastest average internet connection speed in the world. You could easily find free WiFi spot at shopping area or even at subway too. I see Koreans really enjoy streaming even when they walk in the crowded (except while crossing the road :p).
We did lots of research before decided to rent Pocket WiFi. Maybe you are familiar with BOLT? It's same, they usually call it Egg WiFi. Why we rent Pocket WiFi when they have internet access everywhere? Because this is our first time to travel in South Korea and we need Google Maps & Kakao Metro to commute every corner in South Korea. We read reviews is it better to buy SIM card, Prepaid WiFi, or rent a Pocket WiFi while we're in South Korea. And the answer is to rent Pocket WiFi! Why?
You could share with your group
Wide internet connection
Cheap!
SIM card is best if you want to stay longer in South Korea (not for a trip such as study abroad or business trip). We want to try Prepaid WiFi but it can only be use one account for one person, so you could not share the account with your friends. And Prepaid WiFi don't have wide connection, if you plan to go to rural area. That's why we choose Pocket WiFi :)
You could easily rent this at the airport or rent to the third party like KoreWiFi. You can also rent Pocket WiFi in Jakarta. If you rent Pocket WiFi at the airport or in Jakarta, you should pay for deposit money to guarantee the Pocket WiFi from damage or lose.
We rent Pocket WiFi from day-6 when we were going to Busan (we don't rent from 1st day since the apartment provides free Pocket WiFi).We rent Pocket WiFi from KoreaWiFi for 5.000 KRW per day + delivery fee 10.000 KRW (700Mb/day, more than enough for two people) and no deposit needed!
Hope this post could help you to list down what you should prepare before the trip. See about the budget on the next post, readers!
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