Traveling While in Seoul

 If you guys are anything like I am, I imagine quite a few of you want to travel the world, visit multiple countries, meet new people- you know the whole traveling experience. You might not remember, but I briefly touched upon this in a previous post, not sure which, but being in Seoul is a great opportunity to travel to other countries. This is due to its central location in Asia. The following are some of the locations, and countries, that you can take a quick flight and visit over an extended weekend or after your semester ends and you go back home:

1.      Jeju Island – Jeju is an island off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, while I was in Korea I did not have the opportunity to visit this island, but you definitely should. While I was in Korea, basically any Korean friend I made recommended that I visit the island due to its natural beauty. The good news is that this island is definitely one place that you can get to, tour around, and come back over a single weekend plus a day or two. According to some of my friends who did visit Jeju, the flights there are very cheap, provided that you book well ahead of time. Round trip tickets, they told me, only cost them around $70 USD and the flight only took them around two hours.

2.       Japan- For those who have an interest in Japanese culture, studying in Korea is a perfect opportunity to visit Japan. Flights to Japan were not very expensive while I was there with round trip tickets running around $350 give or take 60$. However those prices were for flights to Tokyo.  If you want to visit a city like Osaka, you can look at Peach Aviation (httP://flypeach.com) for significantly cheaper prices, provided you book well in advance. I do wish to warn you that while I did not travel to Japan, I did have friends who did and from what they told me, while the flights may be cheap, other prices in Japan definitely are not. They further said that if you want to go to Japan be sure to have plenty to spend. Apparently the majority of their money was spent just on food, getting around, and, in the end, they had very little left over to spend to do much else.

3.       Southeast Asia- Fort those of you who like backpacking, Seoul is a perfect place to fly from to Southeast Asia in order to backpack the region. I had friends, who after the semester ended, flew from Seoul to Vietnam, to Laos, and a very popular country for backpackers- Thailand. Thailand, and its myriad of temples and beaches, is only about a six hour flight to Bangkok away from Seoul.

Basically, from Seoul, a whole range of Asian countries and sights are only a relatively short flight away. That and flights are substantially cheaper than going back home and then going back to Asia. If you do study in Seoul I do recommend you take the opportunity that this presents you and travel if you wish to.