You'll love working remotely in Korea. The country is safe, has a unique cafe culture, the fastest Internet connection speed in the world, a vibrant nomad community, and all the activities you can think of.
With its 77 million people living on 223 km² of land area, the Korean peninsula is growing increasingly popular as a tourism destination. The country’s rich modern culture is gathering a cult following everywhere, with hit series on streaming services, K-Pop’s latest sensations, delicious spicy food, bingeable online comics, Samsung phones, LG screens… But as digital nomads, we love Korea first and foremost for its dynamism, convenience, safety, sociability, and, of course, its many, many, many cafes. It’s also a hiker’s paradise, as the country is 70% mountains!
Korea's workation visa (or digital nomad visa) allows remote workers to stay in Korea for up to two years, while they are employed in a company abroad. Read our guide on the visa to stay updated with the latest news.
But you don't need this visa to be a digital nomad in Korea. If you work freelance or for a remote company that has no ties with South Korea, chances are high you can visit the country, visa-free, for 90 days. To do so, you’ll need to apply for the K-ETA online, which is cheap (less than 10 dollars). The approval process is fast (it takes between 24 and 72 hours) allowing you to get a ‘visa’ authorization for two years. Then you can just get in and out of the country pretty easily, as long as you don’t overstay 90 days and don’t work in Korea.
If you are between 18 and 30 years old, and even 35 in some cases, another option is the Working Holidays visa. Available to specific countries(like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States…), it allows you to stay up to 12 months, while working in Korea under certain conditions.
In any case, we recommend you check with your embassy in Korea or the Korean embassy in your country of origin 📑
The best thing about Korea is how easy to work there. There are about a hundred million cafes to choose from (literally) in the country and most of them are laptop-friendly. They have fast and free wifi, space and plugs even when they are in the middle of the mountains. To set up your office all day, all a seat costs is a drink (coffee, tea, ades, juice…).
There are also many coworkings throughout the city, as well as study cafes (where you pay a fee per hour) where silence must be observed - so be careful to rent a meeting room there if you have calls to make.
We’ll soon do a full guide on this topic. In the meantime, here’s a rough idea of what will cost you and what will be relatively cheap for a developed country:
What’s cheap in general: cafes, transportation, going out (cinema, bars, nightclubs…), restaurants, tourist spots (palaces, expos, galleries, etc), health, shopping (beauty products, cute accessories, socks, etc), sauna (jjimjilbang)…
What’s expensive in general: accommodation, car rental, groceries (unless you’re more than 5), shopping (tech, clothes, etc)…
You can go check out Numbeo's breakdown of prices.
Half of the country’s population is concentrated in the capital: Seoul. The city is made of many little neighborhoods. This means it does not really matter where you live. You can do all that you need (go to restaurants, cafes, go shopping, enjoy nature etc) close to home.
In general, people want to live either north of the Han River, in the area between Digital Media City and Dongdaemun, or south of the river, as close as possible to the bridges. Most digital nomads live around Hongdae, Itaewon and Gangnam.
But you don’t have to stay in Seoul, it is just easier because it is the capital. The cities where you’ll find most other digital nomads to connect with are Busan and Jeju.
There are so many things to do in Korea! What is very special about it is that touristic activities are first and foremost enjoyed by locals. This means that there are very little tourist traps.
There are many cultural festivals (flowers, fireworks, apples, lanterns, etc). You can enjoy the amazing restaurants, play games at arcades or in PC-bangs, drink at bars, party in clubs, attend concerts, go to the cinema, hang out at cafes (in some you can draw, paint, make jewelry, bags, and pet cats, meerkats etc), participate in cooking classes, brew coffee, ferment rice wine, make pottery, you can visit temples, palaces, go shopping. You can even go camping inside the city if you want. You’re into sports? There’s hiking, skiing, snowboarding, some specific cycling routes throughout the country, surfing, windsurfing, taekwondo, gyms, petanque, volleyball, yoga, pilates, dancing…
If you want to do it, Korea is probably offering it! We have seen groups in parks gather to learn how to train parrots 🦜 (true story).
Korean food is plenty and marvelous. It is by far one of the coolest things about the country’s culture and there is such a variety of dishes that you’ll never get bored.
It is however important to note that meals tend to be spicy, sweet, fishy and meaty. Prepare ahead if you are vegetarian or vegan. Most restaurants and stores catering to specific food diets are around Itaewon and Hongdae, so you should probably try to stay around there, or around local markets. It would also probably be better to rent a place with a decent kitchen and a freezer to store a large amount of vegetables - to save money on restaurants and groceries.
One important thing to know in Korea is that Google Maps will not work very well. Instead, you’ll want to get Naver Map and Kakao Map, or, in last resort, Citymapper. They are a bit more difficult to use, but they have pretty good English mode nowadays and you’ll actually get current and detailed information on anywhere you want to reach.
For taxis, you can use Uber or Kakao Taxi. In Kakao Taxi, be careful to select that you want to pay the driver directly, as the app only accepts Korean card payments.
To order food at home, there are two options for people who don't have a visa: Baedal Minjok and Shuttle Delivery. Baedal Minjok has a LOT more options than Shuttle, but it is trickier to use because everything is in Korean on the app (you might want to screen capture and translate with Papago, Deepl or Google Traduction). You can follow this guide to use it. If that scares you, Shuttle is fully in english and offers mostly foreign food restaurants located in the Itaewon area.
Another great app to have is Coupang, the Korean Amazon. It makes life so much more convenient! Keep in mind your first order might require patience, since you'll have to translate the Korean screens and figure out where the "international card" option is at the end.
Finally, if you want to get a taste of local life, nothing is better than downloading KakaoTalk, the messaging app used by more than 90% of Koreans. Its super cute stickers will change your life, trust us.
The Korean public transportation system is amazing. You can go around cities by bus and subway. You just need a transportation card called the T-Money. You can buy it anywhere in the convenience stores. Just know that you can only use cash to top it up. There aren’t many cycling lanes in Seoul except around the Han River and the whole city is very much up and down which can be exhausting on a bike. Taxis are quite affordable, especially considering the living cost.
If you’re in Jeju or in the countryside, there are buses, but it’s easier to go around by car - be careful, you need an international driving license in most cases. Think of checking ahead!
The Korean peninsula is only accessible by plane or by boat, as it shares its only land border with North Korea. This means its airports are very active and there are many all over the country - in Seoul, Jeju, Busan, Gwangju etc. Traveling in the country is also very easy: there are many comfortable buses to most of the countryside, slow and high-speed trains, as well as ferries to islands.
The best seasons are autumn (mid-September to mid-November) and spring (April to mid-June). They both have temperatures oscillating between 10°C / 50°F and 25°C / 77°F and nature wears its most amazing colors. It’s the best time to view flowers, go hiking, or just enjoy chilling on rooftops. To know more, read our season guide here. We also wrote a list of special winter activities you can experience in the country.
Yes, it’s very easy. The internet speed in Korea is among the best in the world and there are many remote-friendly cafes to work with free wifi from all over the country. Many places are open 24/7!
Very, very fast. You even get great reception in temples or at the peak of mountains. Here's our guide on the best data and phone plans you can find in Korea!
Korea is fairly affordable for a developed country, especially if you earn a Western salary. To compare, it is cheaper than the USA, Australia, western Europe and Japan; similar to Eastern Europe; more expensive than Southeast Asia and (in general) Latin America.
Yes! We wrote a guide to tell you everything you need to know about it.
The general visa exemption for tourists is 90 days. You can’t extend it, but you very easily come back many times in the same year (flights and ferries to Fukuoka in Japan are cheap. Another cheap option is to fly to Danang in Vietnam). There are other options for visas - but they apply to very specific situations or countries.
Yes. There are many coworking spaces and some colivings, especially in Seoul, Busan and Jeju. One of them is Hoppin, our coliving & coworking space in the trendy Yeonnam-dong neighborhood, close to Hongdae.
Yes, and you can join right now our Discord and/or WhatsApp ! ✨
You'll love working remotely in Korea. The country is safe, has a unique cafe culture, the fastest Internet connection speed in the world, a vibrant nomad community, and all the activities you can think of.
With its 77 million people living on 223 km² of land area, the Korean peninsula is growing increasingly popular as a tourism destination. The country’s rich modern culture is gathering a cult following everywhere, with hit series on streaming services, K-Pop’s latest sensations, delicious spicy food, bingeable online comics, Samsung phones, LG screens… But as digital nomads, we love Korea first and foremost for its dynamism, convenience, safety, sociability, and, of course, its many, many, many cafes. It’s also a hiker’s paradise, as the country is 70% mountains!
Korea's workation visa (or digital nomad visa) allows remote workers to stay in Korea for up to two years, while they are employed in a company abroad. Read our guide on the visa to stay updated with the latest news.
But you don't need this visa to be a digital nomad in Korea. If you work freelance or for a remote company that has no ties with South Korea, chances are high you can visit the country, visa-free, for 90 days. To do so, you’ll need to apply for the K-ETA online, which is cheap (less than 10 dollars). The approval process is fast (it takes between 24 and 72 hours) allowing you to get a ‘visa’ authorization for two years. Then you can just get in and out of the country pretty easily, as long as you don’t overstay 90 days and don’t work in Korea.
If you are between 18 and 30 years old, and even 35 in some cases, another option is the Working Holidays visa. Available to specific countries(like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States…), it allows you to stay up to 12 months, while working in Korea under certain conditions.
In any case, we recommend you check with your embassy in Korea or the Korean embassy in your country of origin 📑
The best thing about Korea is how easy to work there. There are about a hundred million cafes to choose from (literally) in the country and most of them are laptop-friendly. They have fast and free wifi, space and plugs even when they are in the middle of the mountains. To set up your office all day, all a seat costs is a drink (coffee, tea, ades, juice…).
There are also many coworkings throughout the city, as well as study cafes (where you pay a fee per hour) where silence must be observed - so be careful to rent a meeting room there if you have calls to make.
We’ll soon do a full guide on this topic. In the meantime, here’s a rough idea of what will cost you and what will be relatively cheap for a developed country:
What’s cheap in general: cafes, transportation, going out (cinema, bars, nightclubs…), restaurants, tourist spots (palaces, expos, galleries, etc), health, shopping (beauty products, cute accessories, socks, etc), sauna (jjimjilbang)…
What’s expensive in general: accommodation, car rental, groceries (unless you’re more than 5), shopping (tech, clothes, etc)…
You can go check out Numbeo's breakdown of prices.
Half of the country’s population is concentrated in the capital: Seoul. The city is made of many little neighborhoods. This means it does not really matter where you live. You can do all that you need (go to restaurants, cafes, go shopping, enjoy nature etc) close to home.
In general, people want to live either north of the Han River, in the area between Digital Media City and Dongdaemun, or south of the river, as close as possible to the bridges. Most digital nomads live around Hongdae, Itaewon and Gangnam.
But you don’t have to stay in Seoul, it is just easier because it is the capital. The cities where you’ll find most other digital nomads to connect with are Busan and Jeju.
There are so many things to do in Korea! What is very special about it is that touristic activities are first and foremost enjoyed by locals. This means that there are very little tourist traps.
There are many cultural festivals (flowers, fireworks, apples, lanterns, etc). You can enjoy the amazing restaurants, play games at arcades or in PC-bangs, drink at bars, party in clubs, attend concerts, go to the cinema, hang out at cafes (in some you can draw, paint, make jewelry, bags, and pet cats, meerkats etc), participate in cooking classes, brew coffee, ferment rice wine, make pottery, you can visit temples, palaces, go shopping. You can even go camping inside the city if you want. You’re into sports? There’s hiking, skiing, snowboarding, some specific cycling routes throughout the country, surfing, windsurfing, taekwondo, gyms, petanque, volleyball, yoga, pilates, dancing…
If you want to do it, Korea is probably offering it! We have seen groups in parks gather to learn how to train parrots 🦜 (true story).
Korean food is plenty and marvelous. It is by far one of the coolest things about the country’s culture and there is such a variety of dishes that you’ll never get bored.
It is however important to note that meals tend to be spicy, sweet, fishy and meaty. Prepare ahead if you are vegetarian or vegan. Most restaurants and stores catering to specific food diets are around Itaewon and Hongdae, so you should probably try to stay around there, or around local markets. It would also probably be better to rent a place with a decent kitchen and a freezer to store a large amount of vegetables - to save money on restaurants and groceries.
One important thing to know in Korea is that Google Maps will not work very well. Instead, you’ll want to get Naver Map and Kakao Map, or, in last resort, Citymapper. They are a bit more difficult to use, but they have pretty good English mode nowadays and you’ll actually get current and detailed information on anywhere you want to reach.
For taxis, you can use Uber or Kakao Taxi. In Kakao Taxi, be careful to select that you want to pay the driver directly, as the app only accepts Korean card payments.
To order food at home, there are two options for people who don't have a visa: Baedal Minjok and Shuttle Delivery. Baedal Minjok has a LOT more options than Shuttle, but it is trickier to use because everything is in Korean on the app (you might want to screen capture and translate with Papago, Deepl or Google Traduction). You can follow this guide to use it. If that scares you, Shuttle is fully in english and offers mostly foreign food restaurants located in the Itaewon area.
Another great app to have is Coupang, the Korean Amazon. It makes life so much more convenient! Keep in mind your first order might require patience, since you'll have to translate the Korean screens and figure out where the "international card" option is at the end.
Finally, if you want to get a taste of local life, nothing is better than downloading KakaoTalk, the messaging app used by more than 90% of Koreans. Its super cute stickers will change your life, trust us.
The Korean public transportation system is amazing. You can go around cities by bus and subway. You just need a transportation card called the T-Money. You can buy it anywhere in the convenience stores. Just know that you can only use cash to top it up. There aren’t many cycling lanes in Seoul except around the Han River and the whole city is very much up and down which can be exhausting on a bike. Taxis are quite affordable, especially considering the living cost.
If you’re in Jeju or in the countryside, there are buses, but it’s easier to go around by car - be careful, you need an international driving license in most cases. Think of checking ahead!
The Korean peninsula is only accessible by plane or by boat, as it shares its only land border with North Korea. This means its airports are very active and there are many all over the country - in Seoul, Jeju, Busan, Gwangju etc. Traveling in the country is also very easy: there are many comfortable buses to most of the countryside, slow and high-speed trains, as well as ferries to islands.
The best seasons are autumn (mid-September to mid-November) and spring (April to mid-June). They both have temperatures oscillating between 10°C / 50°F and 25°C / 77°F and nature wears its most amazing colors. It’s the best time to view flowers, go hiking, or just enjoy chilling on rooftops. To know more, read our season guide here. We also wrote a list of special winter activities you can experience in the country.
Yes, it’s very easy. The internet speed in Korea is among the best in the world and there are many remote-friendly cafes to work with free wifi from all over the country. Many places are open 24/7!
Very, very fast. You even get great reception in temples or at the peak of mountains. Here's our guide on the best data and phone plans you can find in Korea!
Korea is fairly affordable for a developed country, especially if you earn a Western salary. To compare, it is cheaper than the USA, Australia, western Europe and Japan; similar to Eastern Europe; more expensive than Southeast Asia and (in general) Latin America.
Yes! We wrote a guide to tell you everything you need to know about it.
The general visa exemption for tourists is 90 days. You can’t extend it, but you very easily come back many times in the same year (flights and ferries to Fukuoka in Japan are cheap. Another cheap option is to fly to Danang in Vietnam). There are other options for visas - but they apply to very specific situations or countries.
Yes. There are many coworking spaces and some colivings, especially in Seoul, Busan and Jeju. One of them is Hoppin, our coliving & coworking space in the trendy Yeonnam-dong neighborhood, close to Hongdae.
Yes, and you can join right now our Discord and/or WhatsApp ! ✨
You'll love working remotely in Korea. The country is safe, has a unique cafe culture, the fastest Internet connection speed in the world, a vibrant nomad community, and all the activities you can think of.
With its 77 million people living on 223 km² of land area, the Korean peninsula is growing increasingly popular as a tourism destination. The country’s rich modern culture is gathering a cult following everywhere, with hit series on streaming services, K-Pop’s latest sensations, delicious spicy food, bingeable online comics, Samsung phones, LG screens… But as digital nomads, we love Korea first and foremost for its dynamism, convenience, safety, sociability, and, of course, its many, many, many cafes. It’s also a hiker’s paradise, as the country is 70% mountains!
Korea's workation visa (or digital nomad visa) allows remote workers to stay in Korea for up to two years, while they are employed in a company abroad. Read our guide on the visa to stay updated with the latest news.
But you don't need this visa to be a digital nomad in Korea. If you work freelance or for a remote company that has no ties with South Korea, chances are high you can visit the country, visa-free, for 90 days. To do so, you’ll need to apply for the K-ETA online, which is cheap (less than 10 dollars). The approval process is fast (it takes between 24 and 72 hours) allowing you to get a ‘visa’ authorization for two years. Then you can just get in and out of the country pretty easily, as long as you don’t overstay 90 days and don’t work in Korea.
If you are between 18 and 30 years old, and even 35 in some cases, another option is the Working Holidays visa. Available to specific countries(like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States…), it allows you to stay up to 12 months, while working in Korea under certain conditions.
In any case, we recommend you check with your embassy in Korea or the Korean embassy in your country of origin 📑
The best thing about Korea is how easy to work there. There are about a hundred million cafes to choose from (literally) in the country and most of them are laptop-friendly. They have fast and free wifi, space and plugs even when they are in the middle of the mountains. To set up your office all day, all a seat costs is a drink (coffee, tea, ades, juice…).
There are also many coworkings throughout the city, as well as study cafes (where you pay a fee per hour) where silence must be observed - so be careful to rent a meeting room there if you have calls to make.
We’ll soon do a full guide on this topic. In the meantime, here’s a rough idea of what will cost you and what will be relatively cheap for a developed country:
What’s cheap in general: cafes, transportation, going out (cinema, bars, nightclubs…), restaurants, tourist spots (palaces, expos, galleries, etc), health, shopping (beauty products, cute accessories, socks, etc), sauna (jjimjilbang)…
What’s expensive in general: accommodation, car rental, groceries (unless you’re more than 5), shopping (tech, clothes, etc)…
You can go check out Numbeo's breakdown of prices.
Half of the country’s population is concentrated in the capital: Seoul. The city is made of many little neighborhoods. This means it does not really matter where you live. You can do all that you need (go to restaurants, cafes, go shopping, enjoy nature etc) close to home.
In general, people want to live either north of the Han River, in the area between Digital Media City and Dongdaemun, or south of the river, as close as possible to the bridges. Most digital nomads live around Hongdae, Itaewon and Gangnam.
But you don’t have to stay in Seoul, it is just easier because it is the capital. The cities where you’ll find most other digital nomads to connect with are Busan and Jeju.
There are so many things to do in Korea! What is very special about it is that touristic activities are first and foremost enjoyed by locals. This means that there are very little tourist traps.
There are many cultural festivals (flowers, fireworks, apples, lanterns, etc). You can enjoy the amazing restaurants, play games at arcades or in PC-bangs, drink at bars, party in clubs, attend concerts, go to the cinema, hang out at cafes (in some you can draw, paint, make jewelry, bags, and pet cats, meerkats etc), participate in cooking classes, brew coffee, ferment rice wine, make pottery, you can visit temples, palaces, go shopping. You can even go camping inside the city if you want. You’re into sports? There’s hiking, skiing, snowboarding, some specific cycling routes throughout the country, surfing, windsurfing, taekwondo, gyms, petanque, volleyball, yoga, pilates, dancing…
If you want to do it, Korea is probably offering it! We have seen groups in parks gather to learn how to train parrots 🦜 (true story).
Korean food is plenty and marvelous. It is by far one of the coolest things about the country’s culture and there is such a variety of dishes that you’ll never get bored.
It is however important to note that meals tend to be spicy, sweet, fishy and meaty. Prepare ahead if you are vegetarian or vegan. Most restaurants and stores catering to specific food diets are around Itaewon and Hongdae, so you should probably try to stay around there, or around local markets. It would also probably be better to rent a place with a decent kitchen and a freezer to store a large amount of vegetables - to save money on restaurants and groceries.
One important thing to know in Korea is that Google Maps will not work very well. Instead, you’ll want to get Naver Map and Kakao Map, or, in last resort, Citymapper. They are a bit more difficult to use, but they have pretty good English mode nowadays and you’ll actually get current and detailed information on anywhere you want to reach.
For taxis, you can use Uber or Kakao Taxi. In Kakao Taxi, be careful to select that you want to pay the driver directly, as the app only accepts Korean card payments.
To order food at home, there are two options for people who don't have a visa: Baedal Minjok and Shuttle Delivery. Baedal Minjok has a LOT more options than Shuttle, but it is trickier to use because everything is in Korean on the app (you might want to screen capture and translate with Papago, Deepl or Google Traduction). You can follow this guide to use it. If that scares you, Shuttle is fully in english and offers mostly foreign food restaurants located in the Itaewon area.
Another great app to have is Coupang, the Korean Amazon. It makes life so much more convenient! Keep in mind your first order might require patience, since you'll have to translate the Korean screens and figure out where the "international card" option is at the end.
Finally, if you want to get a taste of local life, nothing is better than downloading KakaoTalk, the messaging app used by more than 90% of Koreans. Its super cute stickers will change your life, trust us.
The Korean public transportation system is amazing. You can go around cities by bus and subway. You just need a transportation card called the T-Money. You can buy it anywhere in the convenience stores. Just know that you can only use cash to top it up. There aren’t many cycling lanes in Seoul except around the Han River and the whole city is very much up and down which can be exhausting on a bike. Taxis are quite affordable, especially considering the living cost.
If you’re in Jeju or in the countryside, there are buses, but it’s easier to go around by car - be careful, you need an international driving license in most cases. Think of checking ahead!
The Korean peninsula is only accessible by plane or by boat, as it shares its only land border with North Korea. This means its airports are very active and there are many all over the country - in Seoul, Jeju, Busan, Gwangju etc. Traveling in the country is also very easy: there are many comfortable buses to most of the countryside, slow and high-speed trains, as well as ferries to islands.
The best seasons are autumn (mid-September to mid-November) and spring (April to mid-June). They both have temperatures oscillating between 10°C / 50°F and 25°C / 77°F and nature wears its most amazing colors. It’s the best time to view flowers, go hiking, or just enjoy chilling on rooftops. To know more, read our season guide here. We also wrote a list of special winter activities you can experience in the country.
Yes, it’s very easy. The internet speed in Korea is among the best in the world and there are many remote-friendly cafes to work with free wifi from all over the country. Many places are open 24/7!
Very, very fast. You even get great reception in temples or at the peak of mountains. Here's our guide on the best data and phone plans you can find in Korea!
Korea is fairly affordable for a developed country, especially if you earn a Western salary. To compare, it is cheaper than the USA, Australia, western Europe and Japan; similar to Eastern Europe; more expensive than Southeast Asia and (in general) Latin America.
Yes! We wrote a guide to tell you everything you need to know about it.
The general visa exemption for tourists is 90 days. You can’t extend it, but you very easily come back many times in the same year (flights and ferries to Fukuoka in Japan are cheap. Another cheap option is to fly to Danang in Vietnam). There are other options for visas - but they apply to very specific situations or countries.
Yes. There are many coworking spaces and some colivings, especially in Seoul, Busan and Jeju. One of them is Hoppin, our coliving & coworking space in the trendy Yeonnam-dong neighborhood, close to Hongdae.
Yes, and you can join right now our Discord and/or WhatsApp ! ✨