How Much Can You Travel as an English Teacher in Korea?
Update August 2021: Obviously this article is a little outdated. If you’re curious what traveling as an EPIK teacher looked like before the pandemic, read on. Hopefully we can get back to traveling one day.
A big touted perk of teaching English in Korea is that you’re in close proximity to lots of other countries—Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam—you name it, flights are usually anywhere from $100-500.
Add to that a good amount of vacation days (more than you’re likely to see as an American working in America, anyway), then baby, you’ve got a stew going.
Well…English teachers aren’t really known for having tons of disposable income, though, right? And most English teachers in Korea are in their mid twenties, meaning most are paying off student loans or other debts back home.
I’ll make a write-up about saving in Korea soon if you’re curious about how much you can take away as an EPIK teacher. But that’s saving. Just how much can you actually travel if you teach English in Korea?
Public vs Private: an age old tale
Let’s start off with the basics.
Public
EPIK teachers (that is, public school English teachers with the English Program in Korea) get 26 days vacation per contract year.
(This used to be 18 days, until 2019 when they added more to comply with Korean labor laws.)
However, unlike past years, you no longer get school holidays off for “free.” Used to be, if your school closed to celebrate its school birthday or something like that, you could get a free day off without using one of your 18 vacation days. Now, you must either choose to deskwarm while school’s closed or use one of your 26 days.
You do not have to use your PTO for red days (holidays) like Chuseok or Seollal.
Returning teachers also do not get an extra 5 days upon their new contract as a bonus, like they used to. So the 26 vs 18 days roughly shakes out to be the same, depending on your situation.
In the past, you could only use 10 days in summer and 8 in winter, but there’s no distinction now. So long as school’s out and you’re not teaching camp, you are free to go.
Let me emphasize this: you can only take off if school is not in session. So that means only during school breaks or red days (holidays) which are usually:
Winter break (Jan)
Seollal/New Years (late Jan/early Feb)
Spring break (mid-late Feb)
Either a long weekend in May or October depending on your school’s calendar
Summer (late July/August)
Chuseok (mid-late Sept)
This does not apply to sick leave or bereavement. However in most schools (and in most Korean workplaces), actually using those days is pretty uncommon.
Many schools don’t have or don’t offer calendars months ahead of time, so planning around that can be difficult. My friend has over three weeks off for Spring Break this year, but her school didn’t tell her that until the week before. My school’s really on top of giving me calendars ahead of time, so it’s luck of the draw.
UPDATE: Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, schools were pushed back three weeks from their original start date. To preserve the 190 school days in a semester, we will probably all lose our summer breaks, or most of it. They’re advising us to use our vacation days now.
Private
Private schools, also known as hagwons, run by their own rules, but generally you get 10 vacation days per contract year.
This is significantly less than EPIK, but with hagwons you are more likely to choose your hours, negotiate higher pay, or pick your city/living situation.
I don’t have much to offer on this since I’m an EPIK teacher, but here’s a reddit thread on the very topic.
Where to go?
What are the cheapest/easiest locations to go to?
Jeju, Korea’s big island, is great for a long weekend, especially in Spring or Summer. You can fly out from most airports in Korea, including Busan and Cheongju’s airports, and flights are usually pretty cheap, roughly $50-100 depending on the season.
Japan is also super convenient given how close it is. I know people who’ve gone for 36 hour trips on the weekends. Tickets are usually $100-200. The cheapest price I’ve seen was during the height of the No Japan boycott, around $40.
From there, it depends. Southeast Asia, in general, is great for longer vacations, both because flights are a little bit longer and a little bit more expensive.
This depends, of course. I planned a trip to Singapore, Bangkok, and Hanoi for roughly $500 in airfare. If you can keep an eye on Google Flights or Skyscanner, you can usually get some good deals!
You can also take a ferry/fly to Vladivostok, Russia, which is a close destination from Korea.
Budgeting
As I said, I’ll eventually make a write-up about how much you can save in Korea (which might come after I leave Korea in August, so I can see how much my own pension return/ending bonuses add up to). But for now, I’ll tell you that I can save roughly $800-1k a month. I’m able to take 2-3 big trips per year. Last year, I went to Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Hong Kong, as well as weekend trips and staycations around Korea.
I make it a priority to travel, which means I don’t save as much as I could, but I budget for each trip heavily. I use tools like budgetyourtrip and Rome2rio to make a rough estimate for how much I’ll need, and then I put a little bit aside from each paycheck in the months prior to the trip.
Maybe it goes without saying, but destinations like Japan or Australia will be much more expensive than most places in Southeast Asia. I have friends who were able to backpack Cambodia, Thailand or Vietnam for close to a month on the cheap.
So, bottom line:
How much you travel will depends on your priorities, travel style, and personal financial situation. My friends and I typically stay in hostels or very cheap airbnbs, and we eat street food or at hawker centers, nothing fancy. If you’re coming to Korea to travel, you absolutely can—and a lot!
A little side-note: watch current events
Tally up your finances, watch your airfare price trackers, but also keep an eye on current events.
I went to Japan during summer, right as the No Japan campaign in Korea was in full-swing, which meant flights from Korea were super cheap (but it was also awkward telling my coteachers about it).
I also went to Hong Kong after October 1st, during some of the worst of the protests (write-up here), which meant that flights were cheap but we were also super close to cancelling.
And, last but not least, I’m flying out to Taiwan next week despite the Coronavirus epidemic. While Taiwan has fewer cases than SK, I’m keeping an eye on flight cancellations, and my school might have me self quarantine when I get back.
Update August 2021:
Obviously…a lot has changed.
Before COVID, travel was a huge part of my life in Korea. Every vacation I was jetting off to someplace new. That’s no longer possible.
If you’re coming to Korea in 2021 to travel around the rest of Asia , I doubt that will be feasible. Returning to Korea requires written permission and government-mandated quarantine, which is both taxing and expensive. I only know one person who left the country to visit home but even if you can leave, most schools will not want you to because it’s seen as a COVID risk.
Vaccinations might change things. Who knows. If there’s any lesson here, it’s that situations change rapidly.
This past year has been difficult in many ways, but it’s also made me appreciate my town and the little parts of Korea much, much more.
I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions about any of my trips or what most EPIK teachers do for their vacations, feel free to comment or message me.
Thanks for reading.