I have been preparing for this trip for about 2 years, from the moment I decided I was actually going to do this until the moment I was on the airplane.
I had no money and no idea how to do this, with no traveling experience I was definitely not going there alone, there was no question about that, but there was also no one I knew that had the slightest bit of interest to go with me to South-Korea.
At first I mainly just wanted to know roughly how much money I would need for this whole thing. I started to look for group tours, but as you can imagine there where not much of those, I didn't care if it was from a Dutch travelling company or an international group, actually I thought an international group would be more fun than to be on the other side of the world and still hear a bunch of people around me speaking Dutch.
So I looked all over the internet and went to traveling company's, but i couldn't find any, there where some pre arranged tours that you could take by yourself but none with other people.
After a long search I finally found an international group tour, it was a bit short, only 11 days racing around there, but it was all I could find. I could book this true a Dutch traveling company, i couldn't find much reviews and such about this company so I made an appointment with them to get more information. They where located in another city, so by train I went to their physical shop.
Unfortunately from the moment I walked in there it didn't feel right, it was a tiny office with 3 desks in it, the interior seemed it hadn't changed for 50 years (like an old second hand bookstore should be) there was only one guy sitting behind the first desk. He was kind and gave me information about the tour and all, but on my way back to the train I already decided that I wasn't going to book there. I might be desperate but I wasn't going to loose my hard saved money to a scam or badly organized trip.
While I kept searching and saving I kept looking up travel information about South-Korea; which time of the year to go, what to do with drink water, what vaccines I needed and so on, in the end I knew more than a non-local tour guide I think. What I didn't learn from watching South-Korean TV shows already I learned now, I learned all about their customs and how to behave in public transport, how to hail a cab, how to cross the street (that was seriously tricky sometimes in the big cities). I've been "driving" around Seoul, with Google street view (I love it, you can explore a city without having to go there), for hours already.
After about a year I finally found a group tour with a very well known specialized far-away-travel company, even I heard of them before. It was rather expensive but the length and tempo of going around there was good, much free time to do whatever you wanted, almost perfect, it only was a national group.
I got enough money together and booked for the end of April because that was a good time to go, good weather and cherry blossoms. Now I only needed to wait for at least 7 other people to book this trip...it would only go when there where 8 people on the group with a maximum of 18. I had a hard time to keep myself from checking in each day to see if more people had booked.
Meanwhile my preparations got more serious; go get vaccines, get a suite case, get a world power plug etc. and find out what I wanted to see and do in the city's we would go to and print out maps on how to get there.
I was busy as hell and time seemed to fly.
I had no money and no idea how to do this, with no traveling experience I was definitely not going there alone, there was no question about that, but there was also no one I knew that had the slightest bit of interest to go with me to South-Korea.
At first I mainly just wanted to know roughly how much money I would need for this whole thing. I started to look for group tours, but as you can imagine there where not much of those, I didn't care if it was from a Dutch travelling company or an international group, actually I thought an international group would be more fun than to be on the other side of the world and still hear a bunch of people around me speaking Dutch.
So I looked all over the internet and went to traveling company's, but i couldn't find any, there where some pre arranged tours that you could take by yourself but none with other people.
After a long search I finally found an international group tour, it was a bit short, only 11 days racing around there, but it was all I could find. I could book this true a Dutch traveling company, i couldn't find much reviews and such about this company so I made an appointment with them to get more information. They where located in another city, so by train I went to their physical shop.
Unfortunately from the moment I walked in there it didn't feel right, it was a tiny office with 3 desks in it, the interior seemed it hadn't changed for 50 years (like an old second hand bookstore should be) there was only one guy sitting behind the first desk. He was kind and gave me information about the tour and all, but on my way back to the train I already decided that I wasn't going to book there. I might be desperate but I wasn't going to loose my hard saved money to a scam or badly organized trip.
While I kept searching and saving I kept looking up travel information about South-Korea; which time of the year to go, what to do with drink water, what vaccines I needed and so on, in the end I knew more than a non-local tour guide I think. What I didn't learn from watching South-Korean TV shows already I learned now, I learned all about their customs and how to behave in public transport, how to hail a cab, how to cross the street (that was seriously tricky sometimes in the big cities). I've been "driving" around Seoul, with Google street view (I love it, you can explore a city without having to go there), for hours already.
After about a year I finally found a group tour with a very well known specialized far-away-travel company, even I heard of them before. It was rather expensive but the length and tempo of going around there was good, much free time to do whatever you wanted, almost perfect, it only was a national group.
I got enough money together and booked for the end of April because that was a good time to go, good weather and cherry blossoms. Now I only needed to wait for at least 7 other people to book this trip...it would only go when there where 8 people on the group with a maximum of 18. I had a hard time to keep myself from checking in each day to see if more people had booked.
Meanwhile my preparations got more serious; go get vaccines, get a suite case, get a world power plug etc. and find out what I wanted to see and do in the city's we would go to and print out maps on how to get there.
I was busy as hell and time seemed to fly.
real post date: 08-03-2019
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