Korea, Day 11 and Afterward
The trip home was uneventful; the most interesting thing was that we headed to the airport around 2 PM Thursday and (thanks to the magic of the International Date Line) had touched down at SFO and were on our way home around 2 PM Thursday. Oh, and apparently they made a live action movie of Toshokan Sensou. If I hadn't been familiar with the story, I would have been confused at some places because they had to rush to hit the major plot points.
Overall, I'd say Korea was not as fun as Japan, but then again, I'm really biased towards Japan. This trip definitely felt lighter on my wallet.
One extra travel tip I never quite found a place to work in: An app I found useful was MapFactor, a free offline GPS that has Korea coverage (as well as many other places). It was mildly useful for keeping a sense of where we were and as a security blanket against getting too lost, though it never got to the point where we really needed it.
Before the trip began, I booked the flights, got the KR pass and DMZ tour. A booked most of the hotels for us.
SFO <-> ICN: $974.04
GMP -> PUS: $130.60
Only because we were worried about traffic during Chuseok, otherwise we would have gotten a longer KR pass and saved some money.
KR pass (3 days): ₩84,600
If we had planned better we could have gotten a group pass and saved a little bit.
DMZ tour: ₩46,000
We originally signed up for the D tour for ₩65,000, but on the day of the tour, the guide noted that the latter part of the tour wasn't really going to be interesting for us as we were staying in Insadong anyway. She suggested we switch to the A tour and refunded ₩19,000. If we had planned better we would have realized this and also qualified for a group discount.
Hotels: $520 + ₩45,000
The hotels were nicer than Japan, I think because they don't have as much of a land shortage. Surprisingly, the effective nightly rate was about the same even though this time around I was splitting the hotel cost with A.
Excluding the prepaid stuff, I spent ₩414,398 for a burn rate of about ₩40,000 per day. Note this is not comparable to my reported Japan burn rate, as I didn't prepay for as much stuff there (so it was artificially high, or this is artificially low).
Food: ₩272,680
I think we could have been a little more efficient here, I feel like we overspent unnecessarily at some places. This counts both meals and snacks.
Tourist sites: ₩21,000
Obviously, this depends a lot on where you go. Most places were about ₩3,000.
T-money: ₩44,500
There was about ₩1,000 on my card at the end, which theoretically could have been refunded, but we didn't get around to it (not that I would have had much to spend it on)
Taxis and buses: ₩45,285
Misc: ₩30,933
Includes spa admission, medicine, and gifts
At an exchange rate of approximately ₩1,000 = $1, the trip cost about $2,100. About 46% was for airfare, 27% was for lodging, 13% was for food, 11% was for getting around, and 3% was for doing stuff and gifts. The transportation difference was mostly due to the JR pass (7 days) vs the KR pass (3 days, but even the 7 day variant would still have been notably cheaper than the JR pass). The nightly rate for hotels was about the same, but because the Korea total was lower, hotels took a larger percentage.
Compared to Japan, I'm surprised the totals were roughly equivalent, it felt like Korea was much cheaper. Of course, Japan was only 9 days vs 11 in Korea, widening the gap. Perhaps a better way to look at it is the total trip cost minus the roundtrip airfare divided by the number of days. By that metric, Japan cost about $1270 (excluding manga) over 9 days, or $141/day, whereas Korea cost about $1130 over 11 days, or $103/day.
Overall, I'd say Korea was not as fun as Japan, but then again, I'm really biased towards Japan. This trip definitely felt lighter on my wallet.
One extra travel tip I never quite found a place to work in: An app I found useful was MapFactor, a free offline GPS that has Korea coverage (as well as many other places). It was mildly useful for keeping a sense of where we were and as a security blanket against getting too lost, though it never got to the point where we really needed it.
Before the trip began, I booked the flights, got the KR pass and DMZ tour. A booked most of the hotels for us.
SFO <-> ICN: $974.04
GMP -> PUS: $130.60
Only because we were worried about traffic during Chuseok, otherwise we would have gotten a longer KR pass and saved some money.
KR pass (3 days): ₩84,600
If we had planned better we could have gotten a group pass and saved a little bit.
DMZ tour: ₩46,000
We originally signed up for the D tour for ₩65,000, but on the day of the tour, the guide noted that the latter part of the tour wasn't really going to be interesting for us as we were staying in Insadong anyway. She suggested we switch to the A tour and refunded ₩19,000. If we had planned better we would have realized this and also qualified for a group discount.
Hotels: $520 + ₩45,000
The hotels were nicer than Japan, I think because they don't have as much of a land shortage. Surprisingly, the effective nightly rate was about the same even though this time around I was splitting the hotel cost with A.
Excluding the prepaid stuff, I spent ₩414,398 for a burn rate of about ₩40,000 per day. Note this is not comparable to my reported Japan burn rate, as I didn't prepay for as much stuff there (so it was artificially high, or this is artificially low).
Food: ₩272,680
I think we could have been a little more efficient here, I feel like we overspent unnecessarily at some places. This counts both meals and snacks.
Tourist sites: ₩21,000
Obviously, this depends a lot on where you go. Most places were about ₩3,000.
T-money: ₩44,500
There was about ₩1,000 on my card at the end, which theoretically could have been refunded, but we didn't get around to it (not that I would have had much to spend it on)
Taxis and buses: ₩45,285
Misc: ₩30,933
Includes spa admission, medicine, and gifts
At an exchange rate of approximately ₩1,000 = $1, the trip cost about $2,100. About 46% was for airfare, 27% was for lodging, 13% was for food, 11% was for getting around, and 3% was for doing stuff and gifts. The transportation difference was mostly due to the JR pass (7 days) vs the KR pass (3 days, but even the 7 day variant would still have been notably cheaper than the JR pass). The nightly rate for hotels was about the same, but because the Korea total was lower, hotels took a larger percentage.
Compared to Japan, I'm surprised the totals were roughly equivalent, it felt like Korea was much cheaper. Of course, Japan was only 9 days vs 11 in Korea, widening the gap. Perhaps a better way to look at it is the total trip cost minus the roundtrip airfare divided by the number of days. By that metric, Japan cost about $1270 (excluding manga) over 9 days, or $141/day, whereas Korea cost about $1130 over 11 days, or $103/day.