About Hello Korea Tips

Hi, I’m Yuna. I read the Korean-only fine print so your trip to Korea doesn’t have to start with a puzzle, and then I tell you what I’d pick.

Hello Korea Tips is a practical guide to Korea for visitors from other countries. It answers the everyday questions that are hard to settle in English: what something costs, how it works, what changed this year, and what to watch out for.

Why start with the fine print?

Most official information on these topics is published in Korean, and older English guides can go out of date. So every guide here starts from official sources and explains them in plain English. Then I add the part an official page won’t give you: what I’d actually choose, and why.

What you’ll find here

• Trip Planning: entry paperwork, phone data, weather, and putting an itinerary together.
• Travel & Transport: transit cards, the subway and buses, airport trains, and getting between cities.
• Money & Apps: paying with a foreign card, cash and exchange, and the apps that make daily life easier, such as maps and taxis.
• Food & Restaurants: how to find a good place to eat, read a menu, and order. These are how-to guides, not restaurant reviews.
• Beauty & Shopping: where to shop, how Korean beauty stores work, and how to get a tax refund.
• Culture & Etiquette: everyday manners, holidays, and the unwritten rules that are easy to miss.
• History & Sights: the background to palaces, museums, and landmarks, plus practical tips for visiting them.

What every guide gives you

• The answer first. A short answer up top, then the details.
• Specific numbers. Prices, dates, and limits, along with the date they were checked.
• The catches. The rules and exceptions that are easy to miss.
• An honest pick. When there’s a choice to make, I tell you what I’d go for and why.
• Official links. Every guide ends with its sources, so you can check them yourself.

How I make each guide

1. Official sources come first. I start with pages from government offices, public agencies, and the companies that run a service, not with other websites’ guides.
2. Facts are tied to sources. Prices, dates, and rules are matched to a named source before a guide goes up, and those sources are listed at the bottom of the guide.
3. Every guide shows a date. “Last checked” tells you when the facts were last compared with the sources.
4. No invented experience. I don’t make up trips, stories, or reviews. For facts, I stick to what the official sources say.

Who runs this site

Hello Korea Tips is an independent personal project, run under the pen name YUNA. I don’t list credentials here because the guides don’t rely on them. They rely on the sources linked in each guide, so you can check them yourself.

This site isn’t affiliated with any government agency, transit operator, or other organization mentioned in the guides.

Ads and sponsorship

This site may show ads through Google AdSense, which helps pay for the time that goes into it. Advertisers have no say in what the guides say.

So far, nothing here is sponsored, no organization has paid for or reviewed a guide, and there are no affiliate links. If that changes, the guide will say so at the top. The Privacy Policy explains how ads and cookies work here.

Found a mistake or something out of date? Please tell me on the Contact page. I’d much rather fix it than have you find out at a ticket gate.

Happy planning!

Yuna