Couple travels world for two years
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Baek Jong-min poses with her husband Kim Eun-douk in Taiwan in April 2015. / Courtesy of Baek Jong-min and Kim Eun-douk
By Kim Se-jeong
In 2012, Baek Jongmin, 36, and Kim Eun-douk, 35, were newlyweds who loved traveling. In 2013, they took all their savings and headed for adventure.
The couple traveled for two years, visiting 25 cities.
The plan was to stay a month in each city. The cities they visited included Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Taipei, Istanbul, Florence, Edinburgh, Montevideo and New York.
“We really wanted to get to know the place we were visiting,” Kim, the husband, said.
Rules of their city travel: You only learn about your neighborhood in the first week. The second week, you see things in the city. And the third week, you explore a little farther out, around the suburban area. The last week, you say goodbye to friends, pack and get ready for the next destination.
They chose the list of cities before leaving.
“We chose cities we both liked first, then for others, we had to debate,” Baek said.
They used Airbnb for accommodation, and they became royal customers recognized by the company. “Airbnb came to interview us.”
When it came to food, they tried to cook, but one meal a day, they dined out, “because we wanted to experience the cuisine,” Baek said. “But it was never lavish because we were always cautious with money.”
They documented their travels thoroughly.
“We didn’t want to come back home with nothing,” Kim said. “We planned to document our trip and make a book.” They compiled writings and sent them to a publisher in Seoul, and luckily they found one interested in their project. Three books have been published under the title “We’re Living in One City for One Month.”
They took 50 million won with them. Earnings from book sales and other writing opportunities helped them.
“Many say they want to travel,” Baek said. “But I hardly saw anyone really doing it. We thought we needed to do things right away when we felt like it, and we did it. And we don’t regret it.”
They learned the beauty of a simple, disconnected life.
They don’t subscribe to any data services on their phones and they threw away their television.
The trip also changed their way of living.
“We realized there’s nothing more precious than time,” Kim said. “We realized the life before the travel was buying money with our time. We value our time together so much that we decided to stay out of this system.”
They chose to be self-employed. They got rid of an alarm clock. They eat simple meals. They don’t buy medical insurance, but spend more time exercising. They spend their time taking free art history courses in the city, reading and writing. They receive little support from the government and their parents.
They still take trips. They spent one month in Hokkaido this summer. Baek cleaned dishes and washed cars as a part-time job to earn extra money to afford the trip.
“We try to be disciplined because we know you can really get lazy,” Kim said. “We do things, but never hurry.”
Are they really happy? Yes.
“There are people who don’t understand us,” Kim said. “We understand them. But we saw the value of a simple life and will keep it.”
The pair will give a talk on their travel and simple life experiences at the Seoul Library on Oct. 26.
For more information, visit
https://lib.seoul.go.kr/lecture/applyList
.