Packing for Korea

Ever since Zoë and I have started our process towards teaching English in South Korea we have been keeping in mind our packing lists. We made sure that we had a broad idea of what we wanted to bring or what we needed to purchase. But once we signed our contracts, we realized we actually had to decide on which belongings we had to bring on our adventure.

Surprisingly it is very difficult to pack for a whole year because there are so many scenarios to consider. Will we ever have to dress up? Do we want to bring workout clothes? Will we go swimming? Can I survive with just one jacket? Should we bring costumes? etc. Whatever may happen we have come to realize that no matter what the circumstances we will just have to make things work. I grew up with the Boy Scout motto of "be prepared"and I have now come to realize that a better motto to live by is "we will figure it out."

There are a lot of factors that go into making a packing list for Korea. Here are some of the important ones that we took into consideration:

• Can you get the items in Korea?
• How much space does it take up?
• How can we save some money?
• Will the item be useful? 
• How much space do we have? 
• Are we going to have to ship anything?

Now every person is different and we can only speak for ourselves and what we have learned from our packing experience.

Personally, we found that doing research on Korean products was very useful in determining what we actually needed to bring besides our clothing. Especially when it comes to household items and toiletries. The only household items we need to pack were towels and bedsheets. Everything else is provided because our apartment has already been lived in by the teachers that we are replacing. Interesting fact, Koreans mainly use hand towels for everything so bringing a full body towel is encouraged and bedsheets are very expensive and low quality. Also, common toiletries in the US are very easy to come by in Korea. That means we are not packing things like shampoo or body wash. We do however need to bring deodorant and toothpaste because Koreans do typically use deodorant and the toothpaste does not contain fluoride. So we have made sure to bring enough of those things to last us the year. 

We also have to evaluate all of our clothing. We are only going to be there for a year so it is important to make sure that we are actually going to wear the clothing we bring or else it is just a waste of space. Also it is typical to buy clothing while in Korea (I know Zoë is very excited to shop). But of course we are going to have to be aware of the size differences, which means that buying clothes could be more difficult than expected.   

Lastly we just had to go through items to make sure that they would be useful or not. These discussions were typically solved by asking ourselves the list of questions I had mentioned earlier. Really the important thing for us to remember was that we can figure it out when we get there.

Now believe it or not, we were actually able to fit all of our stuff into 3 checked bags, 2 carry-on bags, and two backpacks.  Here is the proof:

Lets hope we didn't forget anything!