About

In Korea, your sunbae (선배) is the person who got somewhere before you did. Not a teacher, not a tour guide — just someone a few steps ahead who tells you which line to avoid, what to order, and what nobody bothers to explain because everyone here already knows it.

That is what this site is.

Why this exists

Korea passed 10.7 million foreign visitors in the first half of 2026 alone. Millions of people are planning a trip here right now.

A lot of them are planning it on information that stopped being true years ago.

Planning a trip to a country you have never been to is equal parts excitement and dread. The excitement takes care of itself. The dread is the part I want to do something about — the worry that you will take the wrong train, order something you cannot eat, turn up on the one day the market is closed, or lose an afternoon you cannot get back.

So here is the aim: read enough of this site and it should feel a little like you have already been here.

Not inspired. Prepared. You will know what the station looks like, what the menu says, what the price should be, and what to do when something does not go to plan.

If planning your trip becomes the easy and enjoyable part rather than the stressful part, this site has done its job.

How this differs from a guidebook

A guidebook tells you what a place is. This site tries to tell you how it works.

• What it actually costs, this year
• What to say when you get there
• Which day it is closed
• What Koreans do that visitors never find out about
• What I would skip, and why

I want it to be useful twice: while you are planning, and again while you are standing there with your phone out, working out what to do next.

Beyond Seoul

Seoul and Jeju have earned their reputations. Go to both.

But Korea is a small country with fast trains, and a great deal of it goes uncovered in English — smaller cities, regional food, mountains, coastlines, and the quiet places Koreans go to rest that never make it onto an itinerary.

I live in Daegu, not Seoul. That shows in what you will find here, and it is deliberate. Widening the choice is part of the point.

Who is writing this

I am a Korean man in my fifties, and I have lived here my whole life.

I am not going to tell you which cushion foundation to buy — I honestly have no idea. But I can tell you what actually happens when you walk into a Korean bathhouse, why nobody is looking at you, and what to do with the towel.

How the information is checked

Every article carries a Last verified date. That is the date I last checked the prices, hours, and procedures in it — not the date I wrote it.

I check Korean sources first, not English ones. English-language guides to Korea copy each other, and errors travel. Full detail is in the Editorial Policy, including how I use an AI writing assistant and what I do not let it decide.

What I want

I want every person who travels here from abroad to leave with the kind of memory you cannot plan for — the free, happy, slightly unexpected kind.

Everything on this site is in service of that.

Say hello

Found something out of date? Disagree with a recommendation? Want to know about somewhere I have not covered yet?

That is the most useful message you can send me. Get in touch.

Sunbae Korea — Your Korea sunbae.