Settled in Korea is a practical guide to everyday life in Korea. It is written for people who have just arrived, people who are about to move here, and people who have lived here for a while and still get stuck on the small things.
The site is run by a Korean who has lived in Korea their whole life. That matters for one reason: most of what we write about, from buying a transport card to sorting rubbish, ordering delivery or finding a pharmacy that is open on a Sunday, is something we can go out and do ourselves, in Korean, and then explain in plain English.
What you will find here
- Arriving & Settling In: your first days and weeks, from the airport to a working phone and a place to live.
- Transport: subway, buses, taxis, trains and transport cards.
- Daily Life: convenience stores, delivery apps, rubbish sorting and the apps Koreans actually use.
- Visa & Paperwork, Money & Banking, Healthcare & Insurance: the official side of life here, always with links to official sources.
- Food & Eating Out and Weekends & Travel: eating well and getting out of the city.
What makes this site different
- We do it before we write it. Articles based on first-hand checks carry a line such as “Last verified in person: 2026-10”, so you know when we last saw it with our own eyes.
- Official sources for anything risky. Articles about visas, money, tax, insurance and health link to government or official pages and show the date we checked them.
- We tell you where rules differ. Some things in Korea, such as rubbish rules, change from one district to the next. When that happens, we say which area an article is based on.
Who writes the English
English is not the operator’s first language. Each article is drafted in English with the help of an AI writing assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic). Every fact, price and step is checked by the site’s Korean operator, who reviews a Korean summary of the article before it goes live. You can read more on our How We Verify page.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, please tell us through the Contact page. We aim to review every correction within 7 days, and we note important changes at the end of the article.
Settled in Korea is an independent site. It is not affiliated with the Korean government or any public agency.