Budget Trips to South Korea

The people were amazing and all of the planned trips were fun and well coordinated. There was still a lot of free time to explore as well/

Fabulous trip overall I loved it, however I would refine the itinerary in the following ways if feasible : - DMZ on Day 1 as predominantly slower day on the bus (helps recovering from jet lag) - Seoul city exploring was ~ 20,000 steps so perhaps split some of these sights at start and end of tour (doing this on the current Day 1 itinerary with jet lag was a struggle for a lot of people). - drop seeing missionary houses - Buddha temple afternoon was too long (archery was fun, show was good, but several hours of meditation and slow training was very boring) - keep the paper making factory visit in itinerary (as this wasn’t in our original itinerary but added due to weather circumstances and it was excellent) - make this a 2 week trip - tour is very city heavy, consider having a rural visit to rice farmers or equivalent Tour guide JAMES JIN - absolutely fabulous, one of the best guides I’ve experienced on all my many trips with explore. - He went above and beyond to clearly explain the history, culture and flavours of South Korea - his dedication to ensuring the group were content, fulfilled and safe whilst dashing up to Seoul from Busan to attend the surprise early birth of his first child was truly commendable - his patience with the different levels of fitness of the group was caring and supportive - BOOK him again (as this was his 1st explore guiding trip I believe)

Enjoyed the itinerary -- we saw interesting sights and it was well paced.

Great itinerary,you guys packed slot of interesting adventures in a short time period.It was a great tour your guides were great and gave beautiful presentation of your country.

Amazing. So organised and got to see all the best places in South Korea without worrying about accomodation and transport.

Itinerary was ok. Tour guide was NOT good. She didn't have command of the English language and it definitely impacted the enjoyment of the tour. She did not know how to use the microphone and she talked a lot with her hands. Consequently, her voice would be very loud then as she got excited her hands would move along with the microphone and you couldn't hear what she was saying. She was not very good at providing accurate information. One of the travelers asked her if he would see cherry blossoms. She said that cherry blossom season was over. I told her that was incorrect, as we were in the midst of cherry blossom season. We saw many blooming cherry trees after that and it was a running joke with the other travelers. I would have liked to spend more time at the Korean War Museum with a docent that knew more about the war itself. Would have liked to have a guide that introduced us to local foods and provided descriptions of the menu items. At the DMZ, we were given tickets to walk through the tunnel. I wish we were given a photo or some idea of what we would (or wouldn't) see at the end. If I knew that all we would see at the end of the tunnel was the end of the tunnel with a little window, I would NOT have walked all the way to see the end. I wish we could have gone to the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. We went there on our own and spent almost 5 hours there. I wish we could have gone to the famous outdoor market area in Seoul. We went there on our own and had the best street food and enjoyed shopping there. We would have loved to visit some sites where popular Korean dramas were filmed. We hired a private guide for a 2 day tour on Jeju Island. He was amazing. He gave us detailed explanations of several aspects of Korean culture, took us to eat local foods and explained the menus, he took us to the best bakery I've ever been to, and took us to see a statue of Buddha, and many other interesting places.