When most international travelers think about Korea, they think about Seoul.
And that makes sense.
Seoul is exciting, convenient, and incredibly easy to explore. The subway can take you almost anywhere. Cafes, restaurants, neighborhoods, museums, nightlife — everything is connected.
But Korea doesn't end at the Seoul subway map.
Some of the places I love most are outside the city.
Mountain ridges in Gangwon Province.
Quiet forests.
Coastal roads.
Small towns.
National parks.
Long-distance cycling routes.
Places where you can spend an entire day outside and see a completely different side of Korea.
And yet, the more I looked at these places from the perspective of an international traveler, the more I noticed something strange.
Finding somewhere beautiful wasn't difficult.
Getting there was.
The Problem Wasn't the Destination
There is no shortage of information about where to go in Korea.
You can open Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps, Naver, or a travel blog and find hundreds of beautiful destinations within a few hours of Seoul.
The problem usually starts after that.
You find a mountain you want to hike.
Then you check transportation.
Train.
Intercity bus.
Another local bus.
Maybe a taxi.
Maybe the bus only comes a few times a day.
Then you realize you also have to figure out how to get back after the hike.
Suddenly, a place that looked only a couple of hours away feels much farther.
For Korean travelers with their own cars, this may not be a major problem.
For an international traveler without one, it can completely change the decision.
You don't think:
"That place isn't worth visiting."
You think:
"It looks amazing, but getting there is too complicated."
And then you stay in Seoul.
I kept coming back to that problem.
Not Everyone Wants a Tour
At first, the obvious answer seems to be a traditional tour.
If transportation is difficult, just join a tour.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that wasn't exactly the problem I wanted to solve.
A lot of outdoor travelers don't need someone to decide everything for them.
They already know what they want to do.
They know which mountain they want to hike.
They know which cycling route they want to ride.
They don't necessarily need a guide standing next to them all day.
They don't necessarily want a fixed itinerary with shopping stops, restaurants, photo times, and a schedule decided by someone else.
Sometimes they just need one thing:
a practical way to get there and come back.
That idea became very important to me.
What if the journey didn't have to begin with a tour product?
What if it began with the traveler?
Where do you want to go?
And then:
How can I help you get there?
That was the beginning of YourStoryAbroad (YSA).
Outdoor Travel Makes the Problem Even More Obvious
The problem becomes even clearer when you travel for outdoor activities.
A normal traveler may have a small backpack.
A hiker has boots, poles, extra clothes, food, and equipment.
A cyclist has something much bigger.
A bicycle.
While I was researching and planning cycling transportation between Seoul and Busan, I kept running into the same issue from another direction.
Riding from Seoul to Busan is an adventure.
But once you arrive in Busan, you still have to ask:
How do I get myself, my bicycle, and my luggage back to Seoul?
Moving a person is easy.
Moving a fully assembled bicycle is not always so simple.
That made me realize that the same transportation gap exists across different outdoor activities.
Hiking.
Cycling.
Camping.
Remote nature destinations.
The activity changes.
The underlying problem doesn't.
The destination exists. The traveler wants to go. But the connection between the two is missing.
So I Decided to Test the Idea
I didn't want YSA to exist only as a business idea or a website.
I wanted to see what would actually happen if I brought people together and simply went somewhere.
So in July, I created a Meetup community.
I started meeting international travelers who were interested in outdoor activities and exploring Korea beyond the usual tourist areas.
Within a relatively short period, the community grew to around 40 members.
That was encouraging.
But joining an online group and actually waking up early in the morning to get on a bus are very different things.
So I organized a real trip.
My First Hiking Trip With YSA
On August 1, I organized a group trip to Geumgangsan Sinsundae in Goseong, Gangwon Province.
Eleven people joined.
We met early in Seoul and traveled together toward Hwaamsa Temple, where the hike began.
The route wasn't an extreme expedition.
It was a beautiful day hike.
Forest.
Rock formations.
Mountain views.
Sinsundae.
And most importantly, a day far away from the normal rhythm of Seoul.
This trip mattered to me for a reason that went beyond the number of people who joined.
It was the first time I could see whether the idea behind YSA actually made sense outside a presentation or business plan.
And it did.
What stood out in the reactions afterward was not only that the mountain was beautiful.
People liked the fact that they had been able to leave Seoul and experience somewhere they would not normally have visited so easily on their own.
That was exactly the problem I had been thinking about.
And suddenly it wasn't theoretical anymore.
I had seen it happen.
That Trip Changed How I Thought About YSA
Before the trip, YSA was an idea.
After the trip, it felt different.
Eleven people had chosen to spend a day going somewhere outside Seoul with people they didn't necessarily know before.
Transportation brought everyone together.
But the transportation itself wasn't the memory.
The mountain was.
The conversations were.
The experience of discovering somewhere new was.
That helped me understand something important.
Transportation should disappear into the background.
It should simply make the experience possible.
You shouldn't have to spend more time thinking about how to reach a mountain than about the mountain itself.
You shouldn't have to give up a cycling route because getting your bicycle home is too complicated.
And you shouldn't have to join a fully packaged tour just because you don't have a car.
YSA Is Not About Telling You Where to Go
This is probably the idea that best explains what I'm trying to build.
Traditional travel usually starts like this:
Here is our tour. Would you like to join?
I want YSA to start from a different question:
Where do you want to go?
Sometimes YSA will create trips and invite people to join.
But I also want travelers to be able to tell me about the places they want to visit.
A mountain they found online.
A cycling route.
A seasonal destination.
Somewhere they have wanted to visit but couldn't figure out the transportation.
If enough people want to make the same journey, perhaps that journey can become a shared trip.
That is the kind of travel network I want to build.
Not just destinations chosen by YSA.
Destinations chosen by the people who want to explore them.
I'm Still Learning
YSA is still at the beginning.
I'm learning how many people are needed for each trip.
Which vehicles work best.
How bicycles should be transported.
Where pickup points should be.
How early people are willing to leave Seoul.
Which destinations people are most excited about.
What information travelers need before they book.
And which parts of the experience should be organized — and which parts should be left free.
Every trip teaches me something.
Every conversation with a traveler teaches me something.
Even the routes that don't work teach me something.
That's one reason I decided to start writing this blog.
I don't just want to post polished destination guides.
I want to share what I learn while actually trying to explore Korea this way.
The places I visit.
The routes I research.
The transportation problems I discover.
The things that worked.
The things that didn't.
And the places I think deserve to be easier for international travelers to reach.
There Is More to Korea Than Seoul
I love Seoul.
But some of my favorite Korean experiences begin when the city disappears behind me.
A road heading toward Gangwon Province early in the morning.
A bicycle path stretching south.
A trailhead at the edge of a small town.
A mountain you've seen online but never thought you'd actually visit.
There are countless places like this across Korea.
I started YSA because I don't think transportation should be the reason people miss them.
So if you ever find yourself looking at a place in Korea and thinking:
"I really want to go there."
followed immediately by:
"But how am I supposed to get there?"
Then you already understand why I started YSA.
You choose where you want to go.
YSA will help you get there.