blog

Why I enjoy thrilling outdoor activity When I need to get refreshed and relieve my stress, I often look for extreme outdoor activity because I really enjoy the thrill and can feel accomplished. And my adrenaline goes through the roof. I try diverse outdoor activities that make me enjoy beautiful views of skies, seas, and mountains. Each activity made me unforgettable memories and a deeper love for nature. Best places for outdoor activity 1. Ziplining : Whistler in Canada Whistler was where I first tired ziplining. It’s one of the few place where long and high ziplines are possible. That’s because of Canadian vast mountains, dense forests, and wide open valleys. After wearing all the gears, we took a gondola up the high mountain. When arrived, we walked a bit to the starting point. I chose the course which included 6 ziplines. And there’re other courses that you can choose according to your thrill level. As the first zipline started at the highest point and I had to step off by myself, it was really difficult. However, once I stepped off, I could fully enjoy the fast speed and stunning mountain view. After the first ride, I started to get used to the height and speed little by little. As I went further down, I could see beautiful stream flowing down the valley. One of the most special moments was seeing claw marks of bear on a tree and spotting wild deers while we were moving down to the next zipline. If the weather is good and you have a car, it takes about 2 hours to go to Whistler from downtown of Vancouver. So I really recommend Whistler for an easy day trip to enjoy fun outdoor activity. 2. Paragliding : Danyang and Seoubong Peak in Korea Danyang is one of the well known places for paragliding. There’re lots of mountains, valleys, and rivers to enjoy while flying. Also, wind conditions are ideal for paragliding. It takes about 2 hours by KTX train from Seoul. So Danyang is perfect for a day trip to enjoy not only skydiving and local garlic based dishes. And there’re many paragliding operators which provide shuttle service from KTX station. So it’s super easy to go there from Seoul. I’ll never forget the feeling of flying above the mountain. After the flight, they took pictures of us and gave discount coupon for nearby cafe. And if you are planning to go to Jeju island in a good weather, I really recommend you to book Seoubong Peak’s paragliding. It’s because paragliding at Seoubong isn’t always possible. The weather and the wind conditions just have to be perfect. And in Korea, most paragliding spots are over mountains. So it will be very special and rare experience to fly with a view of the beautiful Hamduck beach and hill. One of the best parts was when the instructor did a full 360 spin. It was so thrilling and I screamed a lot. As I couldn’t experience this in Danyang, I guess the weather was perfect of it’s a special service in Seoubong. 3. Surfing : Woljeongri Beach in Jeju, Korea I went surfing at Woljeongri Beach, and it was actually my first time. There were lots of surf shops offering lessons and took a beginner class for 1 hour. The instructor taught us how to position our bodies and stand up properly on the board. So before going into the water, I practiced on the sand a lot. In the water, the instructor also helped me to stand on the boat by pushing mine at the good timing. Of course I fell off quickly after standing, it was super fun! However, the boat was really long and heavy, and I had to walk into the water with it. So it was really physically exhausting. Despite this difficulty, the feeling of riding above waves was super thrilling! If I become more professional at surfing, it will be less exhausting and more fun. Another good thing about Woljeongri beach is that there are so many good restaurants nearby. So after surfing, having a nice meal with beer is so perfect. We had Thai food and it was absolutely amazing! My future outdoor activity plan Queenstown in New Zealand is known as the first place of bungee jumping which is considered so thrilling outdoor activity. And it is one of the highest bungee jumps in the world. The height is 134 meters. When I visited Queenstown, I wanted to try. But I didn’t have enough time and now I regret not to do it. It is so special because I can jump into deep canyons and rivers. I’ll 100% get a huge adrenaline as soon as I jump. Besides bungee jumping, there’re lots of outdoor activities from sky diving, jet boating, and rafting. If I can go there again, I’ll definitely try more than 2 activities.

About Jeju island Jeju island is really famous vacation spot for stunning mother nature. It is an island made from volcanic eruption so you can see unique landscapes like lava tubes, mini volcanic hillls, and basalt rock. And there’re lots of beach which have special color and fresh water. Also, I can’t help talking about tasty food like black pork BBQ, abalone hot pot, and mackerel Sashimi. So Jeju island is often called as “Hawaii of Korea”. The Charm of Jeju Island 1. Beaches, all unique in their own way All the beaches in Jeju island have its own unique charm. Colors, waves, sands, and water depth are all different. About Woljeongri Beach, you can enjoy clear water, wind turbines, and black basalt rock. And as the water is calm and shallow, it’s a good place for paddle boating. As for Seobinbaeksa Beach, white sand made from crushed coral which makes the shore creamy and soft color that is the big difference from others. And it’s one of my favorite beaches! About Hamdeok Beach, it’s known for enjoying water sports like paddleboarding, kayaking, and other activities because it has also calm and shallow water. You can rent gear or join beginner from nearby rental shops. And as it’s very wide open area, you can enjoy those without being disrupted by many people. What I really liked about this beach is the color of water. It has a stunning emerald color because of crystal-clear water. 2. Volcanic hills and mountain You can see lots of mini volcanic hills “Oreum” created by mother nature in Jeju island. As they are made from volcanic eruptions, the shape for each is so unique and it is literally mother nature. As it’s not steep, you can hike easily and it’ll take about 20-30 mins to climb to the summit. What I like most is I can enjoy stunning panoramic views of coastline, fields, and villages stretching out in all directions. And I can’t forget the beautiful sunset and starts I saw at the summit. Among many Oreums, my favorite one is “Geum Oreum”. In summer, you’ll be able to see a crater lake and it’s especially beautiful when it reflects the sky. I went there in Fall, I could enjoy beautiful sunset and reed. Beside Oreum, I wanna talk about Halla mountain, which is the highest mountain in South Korea and part of UNESCO world heritage sites. When I hiked in the fall, it was so fun to see landscape transform from the bottom to the top. Also, there’re several hiking trails, you can choose according to your level. I chose 8 hours course and it was so hard but absolutely worth it. At the summit, I could see big “Baengnokdam” crater (though it was dry) and I was above clouds! It felt like my heart opened widely and so refreshing. One things you shouldn’t miss is to bring instant ramen and hot water. It was crazy to eat it at the summit. 3. Lots of tasty food Of course landscape is so nice, my favorite one is food! I even went to same restaurants many times because they were crazy delicious. The first food you should eat as soon as arriving in Jeju is black pork BBQ. And all the restaurants selling it were perfect. No matter where you go, it will be delicious. However, I wanna recommend a restaurant named “Sukseongdo”. Workers grilled the meat for us at the table and served it with pickled wild garlic leaves and dipping sauce. And when I took a bite, the harmony between meat, leaves and sauce was literally crazy. I couldn’t stop eating. The second one that I’d like to introduce is “Tteokhani” where you can have Tteokbokki (spicy rice cake) with a big octopus. The spice and saltiness were perfectly balanced. As the seafood was added, the taste of broth was rich. All the rice cake was soft to eat and the tempura was perfect because it was crispy on the outside, but even better when soaked in the Tteokbokki sauce. The killing part was fried rice! They used the leftover broth and added rice, dried seaweed, and corn. It was the perfect harmony and I couldn’t stop eating it while I was full. As a Tteokbokki lover, It’s my favorite restaurant that I went more than 3 times. Last but not least, mackerel is incredibly fresh and flavorful in Jeju. I think many of you haven’t tried mackerel sasimi because it should be eaten almost right after it’s caught. There’re full of restaurant selling it especially near Hamdeok Beach. I recommend you to eat after enjoying the beach. It will be a perfect schedule. If I travel again, I will do… I will definitely go to Jeju again to eat the food that I mentioned above. And I really wanna see Baengnokdam of Halla mountain filled with water. Additionally, as I traveled mostly eastern part, I wanna go to other side. I hope you enjoy beautiful mother nature in Jeju and this post is helpful for your trip. If you want more travel spots to enjoy Mother Nature besides Jeju Island Click here

Why I tried solo travel I have experienced solo travel 4 times so far. 3 times were to Jeju island and the other is to New Zealand. I had no choice but to do because at that time there was no close friend who can go with me. And I got 2 weeks to a month of free time after finishing internship or getting hired, I really wanted to use that time to travel. Additionally, as I thought it will be difficult to travel more than 2 weeks after I start to work especially in Korea, I had to spend my time meaningfully. So I wanna share a lot of solo travel tips for traveller who want to explore the world on their own. Good Solo Travel Tips Finding travel mates While traveling alone, there may be moments when you want someone to talk to. If you meet nice people during the trip, your experience will more shine. So here are some tips that really worked for me! 1. Community If you need travel mates to share food and take each other’s photos, it will be helpful to use community like Facebook group and Meetup. For my case, I used Naver Cafe which is Korean online community platform where people with similar interests gather to share information and find friends. When I planned to travel New Zealand, I wanted to find friends who can drive because I didn’t have a driver license at that time. And luckily I could meet good friends who are in a similar age to me and we shared our instagram accounts for knowing each other better. Thanks to them, I could enjoy New Zealand better and save my money a lot. 2. Shared house If you’re planning to travel in a same area for more than 2 weeks, I’d like to recommend shared house. When I decided to travel Jeju Island, I planned to stay for 1 month to truly experience real vibe of it. So I chose shared house to save my money and get useful information from host. Although I didn’t expect to meet travel mates there, I could make a good connection with nice people and we travelled together a lot. If I hadn’t met them, I would have visited only famous tourists spots. Thanks to them, I was able to discover lots of hidden places. And It was so interesting to meet people from different regions and with various professions. Also, they gave me a lot of energy and inspiration for life. Since then, we still keep in touch with each other these days. 3. Hostel Another one of solo travel tips is making travel mates by staying in hostels. When I travelled to New Zealand, I met another Korean group at Haka House Lake Tekapo, a cozy hostel located near lake Tekapo. We did some small talks while eating dinner in the shared kitchen. And at that night, we saw beautiful stars and galaxy together near our hostel. And at Haka House Aoraki Mt Cook, I could meet people from various countries like Vietnam, England, and so on. We together shared each other’s hometown dishes and stories. When I share Kimchi which is Korean famous side dish, they really liked it. Although I can’t guarantee if you will meet great people, the experience will be worth it! Taking Photos on Your Own I think the most difficult part of solo travel is you can’t take pictures of yourself easily. So I’ll share solo travel tips fortaking great photos by yourself. 1. Tripod I think using tripod is good for capturing your full body shot. First you need to find a peaceful spot without many people. And if you set your camera to burst mode and walk slowly, you can get more natural shot. If you feel pressured about it, find a bench to sit on and try posing as if you’re reading a book or gently brushing your hair back. 2. Mirror selfie When you find a mirror and good lightning near it, don’t miss to try mirror selfie. It’s a great way to capture your outfit and the vibe of the place at once. This is the photo that took in Royal Palace of Madrid. 3. Photo shooting included tour I booked a tour when I planned to visit Montserrat in Spain. Although I missed the tour included photo shooting, it was such a nice experience that I could get high quality photos. My tour guide used DSLR camera and took amazing shots of me in great spots. So if you’re into taking good travel photos, looking for this kind of tour will be helpful. What I really liked about solo travel It was so nice to enjoy my own time and plan travel just the way I like. As I was alone, I could try to meet new people and got lots of nice friends. If you haven’t tried solo travel, I really recommend and hope my solo travel tips will help you on your journey.

Why we have to use apps for trip Whenever I plan to travel especially going abroad, I prefer to plan in detail to save my time and enjoy the places perfectly. From buying flight tickets, reserving hotels, and mapping out each day of the trip, there’re a lot to do and I know it’s a bit difficult. However if we use some apps or websites, it will be better. So from now on, I’ll help you to plan your trip more effectively step by step. Useful apps you should know 1. Skyscanner for buying flight tickets As soon as you decide country to travel, the first thing you should do is buying flight tickets because usually the price goes up as time goes on. And I always check the app “Skyscanner”. It’s easy to compare price and catch the good deals. And you can use filter if you only prefer direct flight with no stops. Also you can adjust your outbound and return time as well as airlines. After finishing setting, there’re lots of options shown up and if you click “see Deals”, lots of platforms are shown up and you can check the review stars of each platform. For my case, I like Korean Air most. But usually official site/app is more expensive than trip platforms and that most of the platforms provided card promotions. Assuming that you don’t use airline mileage, it will be great way to check price at the first time. However, occasionally official airline site is cheaper than others, don’t forget to double check! Last but not least, I recommend you to buy tickets on Friday. Since many airlines often launch promotions or adjust their prices to match competitors on Mondays, you’ll find the cheap tickets on Tuesday afternoon or night. 2. Triple for mapping out each day “Triple” is the must-have app when plan your trip. For mapping out each day of trip, it’ll be so helpful. You can add easily all the places you want to go for each day. And the map above the texts shows your journey by time and location. And you can also add the information of flights. What I really like is that this app shows up automatically detail time and airport when I searched my flight number. Additionally, you can leave some message about each journey. Another great feature is you can invite your friend and you guys can see the travel itinerary together. So when I planned to travel Spain with my friend, we could easily view and edit the trip. It was really helpful to save our time. Moreover, the app also has expense tracker. Thanks to this feature, keeping track of our travel spending was super easy and we could split costs fairly and avoid confusion. 3. Myrealtrip for reserving hotels and tours Once your travel route is almost set, it’s time to start booking hotels, tours, and restaurants. It can be a good way to use 1-2 apps like “Myrealtrip”. You can reserve almost anything in it. And when you reserve one thing, you can get discount coupon. For example, planning Spain trip, I reserved Gaudi Highlights and Montserrat Half-Day Tour. At first, it was good to see various tours by myrealtrip’s exclusive expert guide. And I could ask any questions about the tour easily using Inquiry chat support. And as myrealtrip’s tour is known for good quality and price, I couldn’t help but to choose it. Interestingly in 2-3 days, they gave me hotel discount coupon for Barcelona, Spain. Compared to other hotel reserving platforms, it was much more money saving if I used the coupon. So when you plan your trip and need to reserve various kinds of things, it will be much price worthy to use this kind of apps which have lots of categories. 4. Google map and instagram for saving interesting places During our trip, something unexpected always happens, and we should change our plans quickly. Not to be embarrassed and save our time, I recommend you to save interesting places you wanna go in google map. Using different map markers, you can easily categorize like photo spots, restaurants, and hotels. It’s really helpful because you can easily find where to go nearby when a restaurant you wanted to go had long waiting lists. Additionally, I usually follow a lot of accounts that share trendy or popular places like “urbavancouver”. And if I find out interesting places, I also save the post in my travel folder. It’s especially useful when we need to make additional plan. Enjoy your journey effectively! These are all my tips and I hope it will help plan your trip more effectively. Among all these apps, my favorite one is “Triple”. Before knowing this app, I had to use excel or google sheet. Now I can check my route and time while organizing the money I spent only using this app. And if you haven’t decided where to go yet, read my post for some travel destination inspiration! Click here

Why I travel especially to nature Summer vacation is coming! I think many people are looking for best places to travel. And travel gives us a good energy and inspiration. As a nature lover, I’ve been to many countries to enjoy beautiful beach, mountain, and sky even if I’m alone. Since people even camera can never imitate the nature’s beauty, I can feel the unbelievable beauty most only if I go there in person. So that’s why I like traveling nature rather than cities. From my great memories, I’d like to recommend must-go places to travel around the world. Best Places To Travel 1. South Island of New Zealand New Zealand is known for lots of Mother Nature especially south island. I decided to go there after watching Korean reality show “Bro & Ticketing” where four actors traveled the South Island. And I couldn’t believe my eyes if the color of the sky and lake is real! So as soon as I got a full time job and had 2 weeks vacation before starting the first day at work, I decided to go there even if I was alone. The important thing is that you should rent a car to enjoy fully of New Zealand. Among many places, lake Pukaki and Tekapo is so stunning that I’d been just watching the unbelievable color and light sparkle for over 2 hours without saying anything. And at lake Tekapo, you must enjoy Alpine Salmon sold at near shop. It was definitely my number salmon and I recommend you to buy red chili sauce there and bring seaweed from your house. Eating fresh salmon while watching beautiful lake was so happy that I went there again the next day. And I could even see the mountain covered with snow. It was so attractive that I could see both lake and snow at the same time. 2. Mallorca of Spain Mallorca is also one of the best places to travel known for honeymoon trip because there’re lots of luxury hotels, beach to swim, and great restaurants with patio. I decided to go there because of the famous beach “Calo des Moro”. I discovered this place after visiting Yosigo photo exhibition where I saw the pictures of it. The first photo is from there. Although it’s little bit far from downtown Mallorca, many people travel to Mallorca to enjoy this beach. And there’re another beach nearby called “Cala Llombards” which is not a famous travel spot. The second photo is from there. So I recommend you to take lots of pictures while enjoying beautiful view at the Calo des Moro and then move to Cala Llombards to swim freely. Additionally, downtown of Mallorca is so peaceful and the color of street is warm. There is big cathedral which is also good to enjoy at night. And you can enjoy various busking, clothing and accessory shops along the street. And almost everyone is to enjoy their honeymoon or vacation, people looked so relaxed that I could totally enjoy laid-back vibe, too. 3. Sapporo of Japan Winter in Sapporo, you can enjoy all the places covered with lots of snow. From late November to mid March, if your country doesn’t snow, I recommend you to visit Sapporo. In Korea, you can see snow during the similar season, it’s rarely piled up and it’s often melted quickly with road salt. So that’s why I decided to travel Sapporo to enjoy beautifully accumulated snow. One of the greatest memories there was a tour of Biei. I could see Shirahige Falls where hot emerald colored water flows there even if it’s winter. And Patchwork Road was also good although I couldn’t see the colorful patchwork which could be seen in Summer. It’s so vast and trees neatly lined along the road, it’s good for taking pictures. And of course, you can go see a Christmas tree during the tour. It was fascinating to see a single tree standing alone in the middle of a vast snow-covered field. Additionally, what I really like about Sapporo is that I could enjoy hot food like Jingisukan(grilled lamb dish) and soup curry indoor watching snow. And when I ate that hot food, my whole body warmed up and I felt so cozy which was the best feeling! 4. Jeju Island of Korea Jeju island is another one of best places to travel known for tasty sea food restaurants, extreme activites, and beautiful beaches & mountains. I’ve enjoyed four seasons of Jeju. And the charm was all different. In Spring, it is good to enjoy beautiful yellow flowers. In Summer, it’s perfect time to enjoy all the water activities including surfing. In fall, you can see beautiful sunset. In winter, it’s nice to climb Halla mountain covered with snow. Among them, my choice is summer although it’s so hot. I traveled mostly East side because it’s so calm and less crowed than West. And my number place is Gwangchigi Beach. It’s famous spot for beautiful sunrise and perfect to enjoy the scenery because people nearly swim there. What I really like about this beach is the color of sand is black. It is very rare and soft. And you can even see horses walking on this sand. One of the great experiences is that I could sleep on beach listening to peaceful sounds of the wave. It was also unforgettable that I joined one-day yoga class enjoying all the views. If you want to know anything more in detail, read my post about Jeju island. Click here Additional Places Besides this places, I’d like to recommend Hoi An of Vietnam and Kanchanaburi of Thailand. I’ll post about these places later in my blog. And although I introduced only one part of those countries, Montserrat of Spain is also great place to enjoy rugged mountains. And as Koreans, I’d like to recommend Gangneung of Korea, too. It’ll be nice to visit in Summer because you can enjoy beautiful beach and seafood. In 5 years, I’m