South Korea

South Korea is a country in East Asia. It only has borders with North Korea.

Koreans are friendly, honest and generous people who often drive big cars which are usually empty. Hitch hiking is easy here for foreigners if you are reasonably well dressed and clean shaven. I found I generally waited 15 minutes or less. The motorway service stations (hyu gye so) are easy to get lifts from, they often have tourist information centres with free road maps, free internet access and excellent cheap food. Tollgates are also good places to hitch. Technically you shouldn't stand on the motorway side of a tollgate, but cars often pull up here anyway, and the tollgate staff rarely object to you standing on the motorway side of the tollgate. Sometimes tollgate staff may even help you by asking drivers their destination, and asking them to give you lifts if they are going your way!

Write signs in Hangul (Korean alphabet) place names on road signs are generally in Hangul and English, so you can copy the Hangul from road signs. A map in Hangul is useful, and one in English if you can't read Korean

Korean drivers may try to take you to bus or train stations (they mean well). Also many of them are completely incapable of reading paper maps, relying instead on satellite navigation.

Few Koreans speak good English.

vocab/phrases (n.b. my Korean is not good, but these will generally be understood:)

Hello: Anyong haseyo Thank you: Gamsa hamnida/komup samnida Please: juseyo here: yogi Motorway service station: hyu gye so Gas station: ju yu so Interchange: IC pronounced "ee shee", most Koreans seem to understand the word "tollgate" Where are you going?: Odi ga?

This article is a stub. This means that the information available to us is obviously insufficient. In these places little information is available or the description is severely outdated. If you have been there, whether hitchhiking, for travel or as part of an organized tour − be sure to extend this article!