Hello travellers!

This month I’ve been living in Chiang Mai but I did take a long weekend trip to Seoul for my second trip to South Korea.

I say it was a long weekend, but I actually left my apartment on Tuesday and then returned the following Monday so it was a very long weekend!

I first went to Seoul in 2019 just after I had been to North Korea (yes I have really been there, I’ll write more about it soon!).

It is one of the few places I’ve been to that I immediately fell in love with. I loved it so much that I even considered teaching English in South Korea during the pandemic.

It’s been a while, but I have finally managed to go back to tick off a few things I didn’t manage to last time I was there.

I feel like South Korea is the lesser talked about version of Japan. Everyone loves Japan and has it on their bucket list, but nobody seems to mention this amazing country that is just a few hundred miles away at its closest point.

I returned to Seoul for the honest reason of 1) I found a cheap flight 2) I wanted to go Mongolia and Seoul is one of the easiest places to fly there from.

I couldn’t make Mongolia work so I decided to just stay in Seoul for 5 days instead. But I loved the city yet again and just confirmed my earlier thoughts on it.

I stayed near Hongdae, which is known as being a student heavy neighbourhood at the forefront of the K-Pop revolution that has taken over the world.

But I spent a lot of time in the centre, exploring Myeongdong, I went out to Gangnam (of that song fame) for the first time, I walked around Ikseon-dong. All amazing neighbourhoods in their own right and all totally different to each other.

I had already been up the N Seoul Tower, explored the Bukchon Hanok Village and taken plenty of photos at the Gyeongbokgung Palace.

But the highlight of my weekend in Seoul was the day trip I took to the DMZ. The de-militarised zone is the border between North and South Korea that has stood since the armistice at the end of the Korean War in 1953.

I had seen it from the North so I was fascinated to see it from the South and it didn’t disappoint. I can highly recommend the tour I went on for anyone else that is thinking of going.

If you want to read more about my trip to the DMZ then click here.

I highly recommend everybody to visit Seoul as it’s a great city with lots to see and do but with fewer tourists than many other world cities. The food is great, it’s easy to get around and enough English is spoken by many locals that you can get by not being to adventurous.

I loved my second visit there and I might have to start planning my third…

Is Seoul now on your bucket list?

With many people travelling this month as it is the peak of summer in Europe, you may start to think about how you’re going to get data when you’re abroad.

I used to buy a new sim card every time I visited a new country which came with a lot of headaches.

I didn’t have the data when I landed, I had to queue up to get the sim card and then I had to find out how to top up data when I inevitably ran out.

For the last few years I’ve been using eSIMs and Airalo have been my provider of choice, giving me an easy to use eSIM in over 25 countries that is ready to go as soon as you turn off airplane mode on your phone when you land.

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Keep travelling and look forward to next month when I’ll be talking about the country I lost my wallet in and one of the worst travel experiences I’ve had so far.

Safe travels,

Dan