Air Ticket
Our helpful tool - Skyscanner. Of course we dont purchase from Skyscanner because we always feel it is safer to buy direct from the airline. You never know when you need to contact the airline for your flights or changes, plus it is much more easier to contact than some travel agent. We also occasionally look out for any promo and discount. I suggest to keep your dates flexible +/- 1 or 2 days because it may save you abit if you can shift your dates alittle. We monitor our tickets for a good 1 month or so before we decided we should just get it before it increase again. We actually shortlisted Korean Air and China Eastern for the ticket. But eventually we chose China Eastern because of these reasons:
1. China Eastern baggage limit - 2pcs per person, each pcs 23kg. That is a good almost 100kg for both of us. Tell me how will we ever go over this limit unless we are really some crazy shopaholics. Korean Air only allow 1 pcs of 23kg and we couldnt really find a way to buy add-ons (please let me know if anybody ever purchase more)
2. Korean Air timing is not that bad actually compared to China Eastern because CE has a 1 stopover at Shanghai. But the pricing wise, we really save quite abit. I remember Korean Air is SGD700plus per person.
3. Our flight route goes like this : SIN - SEOUL via CE. BUSAN - JEJU via Korean Air. JEJU - SIN via CE. See that? most ppl will have to go back to Seoul for their return flight but we found this at a cheaper price so why not? The domestic flight is a pure luck for us because we just happen to get their super deal from busan to Jeju. Read below for the itinerary planning for this flight route.
So total damage per person: Return flights = SGD 613, domestic flight = SGD 45
Itinerary
As it was the first time we visit Korea, we wanted to make use of this trip to visit the common cities first, Seoul/Busan/Jeju. Went to research on all the places to visit and things that we wanted to see or do or eat and compile them together so that we get a hang of the daily itinerary. Once a rough itinerary was listed, we planned on how many days should we stay in each city. Of course, the first and foremost my sister went to read on the autumn peak period on each city to determine the route. As Seoul starts Autumn earlier, we didnt want to miss the very beautiful autumn so we decided to start with Seoul for 7 nights and 3 nights each in Busan and Jeju. But to be honest and deep down somewhere I would have thought it would be better if we start from Jeju because even though I am glad that we started from Seoul because the weather would not be that worst off as compared if Seoul was our last destination but the amount of loots we need to carry over to Jeju wasn't that easy. And I think it was quite common sense to start with scenic trip follow by shopping trip. So for our city arrangement, you may want to consider doing the opposite route as ours. Once we settled on the days, we planned the travel route for each city so that we won't have to travel back and fro. This saved some travel expenses and time as well. My sister will note down the directions for each places so that it would be easier during our travel. Let me know if any of you wants our detailed itinerary, I can share via email :) peiling.tan26@gmail.com. Of course, we also research on any tourists promotion to cut us some discounts for the attractions/ places we planned to visit. Website like Klook / Kkday gives discounts and vouchers for tourists so check that out when you are planning. Follow on for each day travel guide for more details on our itinerary!
Accommodation
All my travel trips with my sister are usually on budget and reasonable spending. Our main concern for lodging is cleanliness and convenience. We usually dont book hotels for our travel because of the cost and the fact that we know that most of the time we will be out and all we needed was a clean bed and toilet to wash up. As we are staying in Seoul for 7 nights, hotel will definitely not be cost friendly, thus we decided on Airbnb. As my sister drew out the station location for each place that we are going to visit on the train map, we know where should we concentrate on finding the lodging, or at least some where in between to minimise the travel. I believe many will say to stay near Seoul Station for ease convenience which is pretty true. Of course, it will comes with the price as well. We managed to find one that is somewhere near to Seoul Station at a cheap price. At busan, we also stayed in a Airbnb but i feel that this location that we chose wasnt that ideal and we ended travelling quite alot. For Jeju, we realised that Airbnb is almost the same price as staying in a boutique hotel that we found, so we ended up with the boutique hotel instead so we could at least enjoy the last part of Korea better.
Damage per person : Seoul = SGD182 , Busan = SGD52 , Jeju = SGD112
Data/ Car Rental
Lets talk about Car rental. If you have done some research, you would have seen alot of travellers comment that ideal travel mode in Jeju is by car practically because it is an island and it would be easier to have a car to drive around especially for tourists on free and easy. I don't have a license so I solely depend on my sister for the travel in Jeju. My sister found a car rental company - Sixt, I remembered my sister say there is a few to choose from but Sixt has some promotion or discount so she chose that. Remember driver will have to convert the license to international in order to drive in Korea. For your info, Korea is left hand drive and just heads up for Sixt (not sure about our car rental company thou), upon returning the car, you do not need to fill up full tank for them, just fill up to the same as what it was when they hand the car to you because the petrol in Korea isnt that cheap and we were silly to top it to full tank for them. ( Maybe you guys already know because this is the first time we rent a car overseas)
For Data, we decided to get the wifi egg instead because we basically dont need to do any calls and we have our roaming as well so we can actually retain our sg number in case of emergency. It is more cost saving for us as well because the rental of the wifi egg is cheaper than buying a SIM card after we did some calculation and comparison. In term of coverage I think the wifi egg lose out abit because you will have low or no network at certain locations or places e.g basement. Of course you have to bear the trouble of charging both the wifi egg and your phone because it actually run out of batt quite fast (we have been diligently switching off the wifi egg when we dont really use it but we do upload alot of photos and video when we connect to the wifi egg) So it actually depends on your preferences.
Damage per person : Wifi Egg = SGD 52 , Car rental = SGD 69
Total damage per person for flights + accommodation + Data + car rental = SGD1125 for 14 days of Korea trip. I would say this is consider pretty decent expense. Stay tune for the detailed korea trip guide!
Damage per person : Seoul = SGD182 , Busan = SGD52 , Jeju = SGD112
Data/ Car Rental
Lets talk about Car rental. If you have done some research, you would have seen alot of travellers comment that ideal travel mode in Jeju is by car practically because it is an island and it would be easier to have a car to drive around especially for tourists on free and easy. I don't have a license so I solely depend on my sister for the travel in Jeju. My sister found a car rental company - Sixt, I remembered my sister say there is a few to choose from but Sixt has some promotion or discount so she chose that. Remember driver will have to convert the license to international in order to drive in Korea. For your info, Korea is left hand drive and just heads up for Sixt (not sure about our car rental company thou), upon returning the car, you do not need to fill up full tank for them, just fill up to the same as what it was when they hand the car to you because the petrol in Korea isnt that cheap and we were silly to top it to full tank for them. ( Maybe you guys already know because this is the first time we rent a car overseas)
For Data, we decided to get the wifi egg instead because we basically dont need to do any calls and we have our roaming as well so we can actually retain our sg number in case of emergency. It is more cost saving for us as well because the rental of the wifi egg is cheaper than buying a SIM card after we did some calculation and comparison. In term of coverage I think the wifi egg lose out abit because you will have low or no network at certain locations or places e.g basement. Of course you have to bear the trouble of charging both the wifi egg and your phone because it actually run out of batt quite fast (we have been diligently switching off the wifi egg when we dont really use it but we do upload alot of photos and video when we connect to the wifi egg) So it actually depends on your preferences.
Damage per person : Wifi Egg = SGD 52 , Car rental = SGD 69
Total damage per person for flights + accommodation + Data + car rental = SGD1125 for 14 days of Korea trip. I would say this is consider pretty decent expense. Stay tune for the detailed korea trip guide!
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