Housing in Korea

When I arrived in Korea in november 2012, I shared a flat with a room-mate in Suwon. It's quite difficult to find a place to stay when you are not korean. Only a few english websites can help you to find something. The main one (and actually the only useful one), is craiglist. This website is not only dedicated to housing: it can help you to find room-mates, activities partners and sell/buy almost everything ! If you are looking for housing on internet, I highly suggest you to check craiglist. It's free, daily updated, and well known by koreans. Here are some tips to find where to live:

• For one night, the cheapest way (but not the most confortable ^^) can be the JimJilBang (korean spa). Always open, you can sleep inside saunas or in warm sleeping rooms (no beds, on the floor). Very convenient if you missed the last train/bus or if you want to sleep and experiment JimJilBang in th same time! The biggest one I know is in Seoul, Yongsan station.

• For short nights, motels can be fine, cheap and convenient! But korean motels are often used for non sleeping activities ("love motels";)) Something very funny is that motels parking are almost always designed for hiding customers' cars license plates ! But don't worry, most of the time, rooms are cleaned and safe :).

• For short stay, you can use of course hotels (or guesthouses like this one which I tried). This can be sometimes expensive and hard to find good value for money. However, you can find comfortable place for reasonable prices (taking in account that Seoul hyotels are quite expensive compared to Asia).

• For longer stay and if you want to experiment korean culture during your trip, you can try Hasukjib. This is like living in a korean family (a korean mother will take care of you!).

• For students, or young workers, goshiwons are small rooms with bed and (private or share) shower/toilets. It's fully furnished, cheap and often in downtown. However, it's often small, but still perfect for students. I will present my current room later on this blog.

• Finally, you can rent your own flat (or room-sharing by using craiglist). Please note that there is two ways to rent a flat in Korea: paying rents every month + low key money OR paying low rents every month + high key money. The second option can be quite strange for foreigners, but it s quite common in Korea (the money can be invested by landlord which will use your rents to refund you when you will leave). Korea is a country of mountains and big cities. Most of appartenements are in big towers.