By Kim Ji-soo
When do you know that it’s time to hit the road for that long-awaited summer holiday?
When the sun’s starts to radiate through your head, like eggs sizzling on a frying pan, and when colleagues and people around you all become visibly lethargic.
Usually in Korea, that time falls around late July and early August. As a salaried worker, bound by high prices and the schedules of others, it’s not easy to travel during the peak period. So when you get the chance, you take it.
Naturally, I jumped at the chance. After some agonizing over whether to hit a cold or hot region, I opted for hot. As they say, “Like kills like.” Or more like “kill heat with heat.” But it wasn’t only the heat that nearly killed me.
Against the advice of seasoned travelers, I chose to go on one of the package tours that Korean tour agencies sell en masse. Just as Japanese tourists flocked to overseas destinations in the 1960s in formation under a flag and wearing the same badges, the majority of Koreans still travel in groups.
There are a lot of merits to going on such tours. They’re cheaper than arranging your own trip, and there are the comforts of a Korean-speaking guide and the chance of Korean meals, should one miss them.
There are, however, downsides. These tours are priced at attractively cheap rates, but the tour agencies offer “optional” exciting activities such as seafood on a boat or jet-boat rides and massages. The participants of the tour are politely asked to visit several specialty stores here and there. Usually if you go on a package tour to Southeast Asia, it will be stores specializing in a certain type of mushrooms or tropical fruits said to boost your health, or in latex mattresses or pillows. There is no outright request that the participants of the tour buy either the options or the specialty goods, but most participants go on to purchase them with the understanding that it’s the price you pay for going on a cheap package tour.
These visits are entertaining in their own ways, but sometimes the three to four hours spent in these shops are better spent glimpsing into the lives of the locals by walking through the streets and alleys. As more Koreans travel in earnest, either abroad or at home, I thought these packages were a thing of the past. After having been on these junkets throughout countries in Southeast Asia, I had assumed that package tours would have been upgraded for the Korean traveler ― less visits to the shops and less optional activities, even if the prices of the tours were to go up a bit.
But my assumptions were proven incorrect, and the cheap tours ― at a price ― still exist for Korean travelers. On a visit to Vietnam, known for its aodai and rice noodles, I had to fight the resentment of being ripped off even as I took in the simple and beautiful people and way of life of the country. The beauty of Ha Long Bay, which features more than a thousand limestone karsts and islands along the 120-kilometer coastline of Bai Chay Beach, was a great comfort that cleansed the discontent.
Anyway, such a trip took my thoughts to an odd destination ― that nothing is free in life. For a relatively cheap tour to a once-largely closed nation, perhaps it was only natural that one pays for additional “services.”
Korea as a nation is looking to change how its people use their leisure time. It’s easier to spot public ads on television or on billboards urging people to take “proper” holidays these days. Lee Charm, head of the Korea Tourism Organization in a recent interview explained how he took nearly 11 days off to tour the country with his family. With such encouragement, more Koreans will surely be looking for quality holidays. It’s time to think more creatively.