South Korea

I visited South Korea on a whim. I have loooots of places on my bucket list, but South Korea hadn’t really come up on my radar. When I announced my trip, even once I arrived in Seoul, most assumed I must be really into K-Pop or K-Dramas. Although I was an admirer of South Korean film (like all former film students, I imagine), I actually had little to no knowledge of pop culture. I simply had itchy feet in Sydney and Jetstar was offering cheap return flights.

As I left Sydney, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had done my research and found the highlights, developed my game plan of Seoul – Busan – Seoul (I really only picked Busan initially because of the eponymous film – yes, I watched it on the train there).

Once I arrived, I quickly found South Korea offers excellent wandering. No wonder I loved it. I found myself covering 30,000 steps a day, only pausing to collapse in front of another delicious pastry, spurred on by the potential of the next enticing discovery. You definitely don’t have to treat South Korea like an endurance challenge, but you might find it hard to resist. I found South Korea endlessly charming, whimsical, and most of all – delicious. Read on to find out why South Korea needs to be bumped right to the top of your bucket list.