South Korea

Korea is the easiest country to move around that we sell, and that changes what a trip there can be. Seoul to Busan is under three hours on the fast train, across the length of the country. The subway reaches everything, one card pays for all of it, and the trains leave at the minute they say they will. You spend your days in places rather than in traffic, which is not something we can say about most of this list.

Seoul first, because it takes as long as you give it. Gyeongbokgung with the guard change at the gate, the lanes of old tiled houses at Bukchon behind it, Insadong for tea and paper and brushes, Myeongdong after dark when the street food carts come out, Hongdae if you want to see what the young half of the country does on a Friday, and Namsan above all of it for the view of how far the city goes. An hour north of the city is the DMZ, which is the strangest morning you will spend anywhere: binoculars pointed at a country nobody in the room can visit. Then Busan at the other end, which is beach and port and fish market, the painted houses stacked up the hillside at Gamcheon, and a completely different temperament from the capital. Gyeongju in between is the old capital, low and green and full of burial mounds and temples, and it is where people who thought they were coming for cities end up happiest.

The seasons here are not decoration, they are the reason to pick one month over another. Spring blossom is short and everybody knows about it. October is the better bet, dry and clear with the hills turning, and it is our own preference. Midsummer is hot, humid and properly wet. Winter is genuinely cold and is the season for the mountains rather than the streets.

Now the thing we would want to be told, if we were the ones going. Korean food is one of the great reasons to travel there and it is also the part that takes planning on a Pakistani passport. Pork is not a niche ingredient in Korea, it is in a very large share of what a restaurant serves, and other meat is not halal by default. Around the mosque in Itaewon in Seoul there is a proper cluster of halal restaurants, the tourism authorities publish lists of halal-friendly places, and in central Seoul you will eat well without much effort. Outside Seoul and Busan it thins out quickly. Seafood is everywhere and is the reliable fallback, and it is superb. None of that is a reason not to go. It is a reason to plan the eating rather than assume it, and it is a large part of what we are for on this trip.

English is another one. Signage on transport and at the sights is good, spoken English is limited outside hotels and the tourist trade, and a translation app on your phone carries you further than you would expect. People are helpful about it.