Whether this is your first trip to Korea or you’ve been there before, the following are some essential tips that I usually keep in mind when traveling somewhere new.
To ensure that you have all of the necessary formal and official information for your trip, study the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ travel advice for South Korea.
On the other side, in this essay, I will give some informal tips and social norms that may be incredibly useful to you as well.
Get cash before or during your trip
Although you can use your card to pay for anything in South Korea, cards issued outside of South Korea are frequently denied.
Even cards comparable to VISA can be declined in South Korea, so bring won, the country’s native currency, with you.
To get South Korean won, you can:
Ask for South Korean won at your bank before leaving (Give it time! It’s a “difficult” currency to get abroad.
Change money in an exchange facility, either in Korea or overseas.
When you first arrive in Korea, use your credit or debit card to withdraw cash from an ATM. They will charge you a commission, but this is the most convenient and efficient way to conduct business.
Request the Q-code before entering Korea
If you are visiting Korea as a tourist, you must have a particular number of documents, which must be obtained before you depart.
Because they are legally necessary, these documents must be considered, even though obtaining them is not very difficult.
The most frequently questioned documents are the Q-code, also known as the health code, and the K-ETA, also known as the Electronic Travel Authorization to Korea.
As soon as you arrive, get a T-money
The T-money card is the one that will be accepted for all modes of public transit. This is significant because cash is no longer accepted on most modes of public transit.
You will need this card to exit the airport, therefore I recommend that you purchase it at the airport and then recharge it to ensure complete freedom of movement.
You can buy T-money from a “convenience store” at the airport, such as a 7-Eleven, CU, or GS25, and recharge it there.
In addition, you can use this card on the metro and any and all buses that operate throughout the country! That is, you can use the card in both Seoul and Busan, as well as in the most remote areas of the country.
Hotel or motel?
Be careful, Hazelnut! Motels and love hotels are very common in Korea, and they frequently act as hotels.
If you search on Booking, you will most certainly come across hotels that, upon closer scrutiny, are nothing more than sex motels where couples can have sexual experiences.
When you are standing in front of the building, it is rather obvious if it is one or not, but looking at images of the structure on the internet, it can be difficult to tell.
Is it unsafe to stay in a motel in Korea?
The quick answer is no, it is not insecure; nonetheless, like with anything else, it is best to proceed with caution and emphasize that it is dependent on what you think.
If you are a woman traveling alone, this may not be the best place to stay because, to put it mildly, people may presume you are a prostitute and are experiencing awkward or even compromising situations. If you’re traveling alone, this may not be the ideal place to stay.
In my case, people on the street confused me for Russian more than once, because it is widely believed that a large number of Russian women indulge in prostitution.
This is due to the long-standing trafficking in white women from Russia and the Philippines in South Korea.