goto-korea.com is a walking and hiking guide to Korea for people who do not read Korean. It is run by Ojick.com, a company registered in Seoul in 2012 whose main business is software development and digital marketing.
This site is not that business. It started as a side project, for a straightforward reason: Korea is about seventy per cent mountains, the trails run right through the middle of its cities, and almost none of that is explained in a language a visitor can read.
Who this is for
Visitors with a free half-day. Most people come to Korea for something else — a holiday itinerary, work, family, a clinic appointment — and find themselves with four to eight hours unaccounted for. That is exactly the size of a Korean day hike. We describe what each route actually demands so you can tell whether it fits the gap you have.
Foreign residents in Korea. If you live here and want to start walking regularly, the barrier is rarely fitness. It is not knowing which bus goes to the trailhead, whether there is a toilet, or what the signs mean. That is the gap this site is trying to close.
How the trail guides are written
Routes are walked before they are published. Our editor lives in Busan, hikes eight or more times a month, and has walked the full length of the Galmaetgil network three times. Course pages are based on repeated visits to the same route — usually three to five — rather than on a single trip or on other people’s descriptions.
Each guide carries a walking-load table: time, surface, ascent, shade, exertion, how easy it is to stop early, and what facilities are on the way. Those figures are our own assessment for trip planning rather than survey measurements, and we say so on every page that carries them.
Official distances, course structures and opening hours are taken from the managing authority — Busan Metropolitan City for Galmaetgil, the relevant city or park service elsewhere — and cited as such.
Walk with us
There is a walking schedule each month. If you live in Korea and want to join, you are welcome — get in touch and we will tell you where and when. Coffee and something to eat are on us.
What we cover, and what we don’t
Alongside the trails we write about light aesthetic treatments — the kind people add to a Korea trip because the work is good and the price is a fraction of what it costs at home. We cover the ones you can walk away from the same day.
We do not cover plastic surgery, or anything with a recovery period long enough to define your trip. The reasoning is set out here.
More importantly: this is a travel guide, not a medical service. We do not tell anyone how long to rest after a procedure, because we are not qualified to and we have not examined you. Your clinic decides what you should avoid and for how long; our job is to tell you which walks fit inside those limits. That division of labour is explained in full here.
Languages
The site is built to run in thirteen languages. English, Japanese and Chinese are the furthest along; several others are being rebuilt. Translations are produced with machine translation and are not currently reviewed by a native speaker — we would rather say that plainly than let you assume otherwise. If you find a translation that misleads, please tell us.
Money
This is not a non-commercial site. We may in future accept sponsorship from clinics or travel businesses. If that happens it will be disclosed on the pages it affects, and it will not change which routes we recommend or what we say about them.
We do not sell tours, take bookings, or receive commission on clinic appointments.
Corrections
Trails change. Sections close for construction, bridges wash out, bus routes move. If something on a course page is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — this is the single most useful thing a reader can do for the next person.
Email ojick@ojick.com, or use the contact details in the footer.
Contact
Ojick.com
102, Building 1, Hillstate Building, 7 Hakdong-ro 68-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Tel: +82-2-6279-0777
Email: ojick@ojick.com
WhatsApp: @redhatkill
KakaoTalk: @zegalang
Nothing on this site is medical advice. Treatment suitability, restrictions and recovery differ by person and by clinic, and only a licensed practitioner who has examined you can advise on them. Trail conditions and park hours change; check with the managing authority before you set out.