Korean Job Discussion Forums

[schieft]

I posted a thread about this in the travel forum a while back, but no one seemed to notice...

Anyway, my girlfriend and I are considering teaching in Korea. Of course, the possibility for travel is one of the main reasons. For those of you who have worked in hagwons with limited vacation, how much were you able to travel in and outside of Korea?

Thanks!

[bekinseki]

I think pretty well everyone will say it's very hard, and if you get ten vacation days your boss will get very angry if you try to spend them all at once.

[r122925]

Travelling within Korea is very possible. It's a small country, so a weekend is plenty of time for most trips. Travelling internationally will be hard with limited vacation time. But there's nothing stopping you at the end of your contract. Many of the traveling-types save up money over the course of the year and then travel all over Asia for a few months when the the job is finished. Then you can go home or come back to Korea to start over again.

[duke of new york]

The standard for hagwons is 10 days divided into two 5-day vacations. If you take off Mon-Fri, with the two weekends, it's nine days off in a row, so you can take a two pretty good length trips. You should also have some long weekends occasionally when you can take a shorter trip. I got Mon-Tue off recently for winter break, so I took a short trip to Fukuoka to visit a friend. I only got to spend three days there, so there wasn't enough time to travel around the country or anything, but three days was enough to see some of Fukuoka and Nagasaki.

I think you can expect to be able to take two long trips (about 8 days) and about two short trips (about 3 days) in a year. There is also the possibility of taking a trip after your contract is finished, either before you go home or before you start a new one. I think the weekends will probably be enough for most travel within Korea; the country is so small you can get about a day and a half anywhere. There's not really much to see anyway.

[r122925]

[northway]

Personally, I've traveled quite a bit in Korea but haven't found many of the domestic options particularly appealing. The weather is awful for about eight months of the year, and there are few places that are actually imposing or impressive, at least from my perspective. Korea's mountains are about the same size as much of what I grew up with in New England, yet they're in less pristine places. Long weekends are the best time to travel around the country, yet the traffic is often absolutely horrible. That said, if you live in Daegu or Daejeon there are a lot more places that are easily accessible. If you live in Seoul or the surrounding area you've basically got an hour drive just to get out of the greater metropolitan area, after which it gets a bit prettier, but still, much of it looks the same.

As for travel outside of Korea, it's definitely possible if you get two full weeks a year, though you're usually going to be traveling at peak time if you work for a hagwon (often the last week of July and the last week of December), so you'll pay dearly for the privilege. If you want to really travel, your best bet is probably to save up and do a big backpacking trip at the end. It's pretty easy to save enough to do several months without issue. A lot of people who come here with travel as their specific goal and work at hagwons end up hating their jobs.

[alongway]

For weekend travel you aren't only limited to Korea. If you aren't working for a PS and finished at a decent time on Friday, you could go to Japan for the weekend if you wanted.
It's not a long flight, 1 hour 20 to Fukuoka, a little longer to Osaka or Tokyo.
Which is doable. The flight time doesn't really chew up much of your weekend. Beyond that though, it's a little hard to go much further.
Beijing or Shanghai might be okay at about 2 hours if you can get the visa (do it before you have less than 6 months left on your Alien registration card)
Taipai and Hong kong are getting a bit far for a comfortable weekend trip.
If you have a long weekend they might be more doable.

This assumes you are somewhat near the airport. If you're really far from the airport it will add a lot to your travel time and make that kind of travel much less appealing.

[northway]

[alongway]

[ktkates87]

My husband and I also came to Korea with the same intentions. We managed to get to Thailand during the first holiday that we were given around Christmas. When it came time to start making plans for the next holiday it took months to get our boss to finally confirm our vacation dates and we missed out on the cheap flights and we just stayed in Korea. It was nice to have a break and go somewhere during that one holiday, but when you think about it it makes a lot more economical sense to just save your money and go somewhere at the end of your contract which is what we did.....3 months through Nepal and India.

I think I had unrealistic expectations about all the globe-trotting I would do while in Korea but it is definitely doable to travel to a bunch of places if you want to (you'll get your two 1 week vacations and then probably two 5-day vacations for chuseok and budda's birthday). You'll have tons of opportunities for weekend trips as well as someone else mentioned.

[alongway]

keep in mind you can sometimes get longer bonus vacations if holidays fall at the right time.
Chuseok and New years can give you as many as 3 days off if they fall on a tuesday or Thursday and become attached to the weekend, giving you 5 days total. So theoretically if you planned well you could have 2 x 9 day holidays and 2 x 5 day holidays, plus an assortment of long weekends.
depending where you work, you might get a couple bonus days off as well. If chuseok or new years falls on a wednesday, some places will take the monday and friday off. If they don't want you to hang out, it's another 9 days off.

Those scenarios aren't consistent and vary from year to year though.

[duke of new york]

I would have to disagree about weekend trips out of the country. Of course, travel is different for everybody, but to me, that's not enough time to justify the expense and trouble of going overseas. The flight to Fukuoka may only be an hour, but the bus ride to the airport is probably at least an hour, depending on where you live, plus you have to get to the airport early, and there's the transport from the arrival airport to your accommodations...so you will need several hours to devote to the travel part, regardless of flight time. Even if you can leave Friday evening and come back Sunday evening, that only gives you one full day in the country you're visiting. I just don't see a day trip to China or Japan being an efficient use of your time and money.

[northway]

[alongway]

[duke of new york]