Who writes this
Jeong, Korea is a one-person site. No agency, no rotating freelancers, no travel desk. Just me — which is the whole point.
Narae
Korean. Writer of everything on this site.
I grew up here and I still live here. For years, whenever a friend from abroad landed in Seoul, I got the same message before their bags were unpacked: “Not the tourist stuff — where do Koreans actually go?”
I answered that question so many times over text that I started keeping the answers somewhere. That's what this site is. Every guide here started as something I sent to one person who was about to get on a plane.
I'm not a licensed tour guide and I don't work for the tourism board. What I have is the thing those roles can't give you: I'm the person you'd text. I eat at these places on ordinary Tuesdays, I take these subway transfers to work, and I make the same mistakes you're about to make — I've just made them earlier.
How I decide what goes up
Four rules. They're why a post takes longer than it looks like it should.
I've been there. Recently.
Every place on this site is somewhere I've actually eaten at, walked through, or used. If a place changed hands or went downhill since I wrote about it, the post gets updated or pulled — not left up because it ranks.
Korean first, English second.
I write about what Koreans actually do, then explain it in English. That order matters. Most English-language Korea content is written the other way around — starting from what foreigners already expect to find, and working backwards.
Practical over pretty.
Prices, opening hours, what to say at the counter, what usually goes wrong. If a guide looks beautiful but leaves you standing outside a closed door on a Monday, it failed.
I say when I don't know.
Rules change — visa terms, transport fares, refund thresholds. Where something is likely to shift, I say so and point to the official source instead of freezing a number that will quietly go stale.
What you won't find here
- Sponsored posts dressed up as personal recommendations.
- Places I haven't been, rewritten from someone else's blog.
- “Top 10 must-see” lists built for search engines rather than for you.
- Advice on visas, taxes, or medical care as if I were a professional. I'm not — I'll tell you where to ask.
How this site pays for itself
This site carries advertising, and it may carry affiliate links in the future. Ads are served by third-party networks and are labelled as ads — they are not recommendations from me, and no advertiser gets to decide which places appear in a post or how I describe them.
If a post ever contains a link that earns me a commission, it will say so in that post. What's in the writing itself doesn't change either way: I still have to have been there.
For what gets collected when you visit — cookies, analytics, ad personalisation, and how to opt out — see the Privacy Policy.
Getting in touch
Corrections are genuinely welcome — if a place closed or a price moved, telling me makes the site better for the next person. Reach me at ceo@zulgap.kr, or see the contact page for what I can and can't help with.