At the picturesque seaside city of Pohang in South Korea, there is a red lighthouse that looks all too familiar. Not too far away is a restaurant with a stunning view of the sea, a seemingly non-descript dental clinic, grocery and hardware stores, a bustling fish market, and a charming brick-wall house.
If you watch and love K-dramas, chances are that Pohang is now part of your South Korea travel itinerary, given that all these locations featured in the 2021 smash-hit K-drama Hometown Cha Cha Cha, as the fictional town of Gongjin. Locations like these that have featured in memorable K-dramas over the years are plenty, and what better way to explore the country than to delve into places that you have seen and revelled in onscreen?
Buoyed by the resurgence of the Hallyu wave during the pandemic, tourists to South Korea from across the world have only been steadily growing in numbers. Statistics from the Korea Tourism Organization indicate that 1,22,771 tourists from India visited South Korea in 2023. In 2024, the country welcomed over 53,000 tourists from India till April, which marked a 95% increase compared to the same period in 2023. In February this year, KTO launched the K-incentive scheme 2.0, where travel agents will be incentivised for processing quick, simple, and hassle free tour visas for tourists from India, between February and September 2024.
On a 2022 trip to South Korea, entrepreneur and licensed therapist Jeanie Chang visited and documented several K-drama filming sites on her Instagram page Noona’s Noonchi. ”I got several messages from people saying that if I ever do a K-drama tour, they would love to join in. This set the ball rolling for me,” she says. Jeanie went on to apply for a tourism and business license, and set up a tour company Noona’s Noonchi tours. Since summer 2023, Jeanie has already gone on five tours, and has three more scheduled for the rest of the year. Guests on her tours are predominantly from the USA and Canada and Jeanie says given how her tour is priced(from $4,900 onwards) and the premium experience, the average age of her guests is around 45 to 50 years.
The numbers too are steadily growing — for 2025, Noona’s Noonchi tours already have 12 tours scheduled, which includes K-pop themed ones as well.
Wellness and K-dramas
“Anyone can do a K-drama tour. But as a mental health expert, I add a layer of wellness,” says Jeanie, who has also authored the book, How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life: Powerful Lessons on Belongingness, Healing, and Mental Health. During the tour, she speaks to her guests about the importance of mindfulness, has them do breathing exercises during workshops, discusses the themes in her book, and has meditation sessions at idyllic locations that have also served as K-drama filming locations.
Jeanie Chang and her tour group click a picture in front of the famous lighthouse in Pohang, featured in several K-dramas including Hometown Cha Cha Cha | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Her tour itineraries are packed — Jeanie laughs and says her guests do a minimum of 15,000 steps everyday. “There is so much to see and I want people who have travelled all the way to South Korea to see it all during my tour. Group tours work well given that we make it easier to access places that are remote,” she explains. From the restaurant where the protagonists in Moving enjoyed pork cutlets, and Vincenzo’s Geumga Plaza, to Yonsei University which has featured several popular K-dramas including True Beauty, and locations featured in the recent blockbuster Lovely Runner, her tour is packed with locations.
“The emphasis here is not just to simply visit these filming locations but to experience something new, and together as a community where you make friends for life. Having local tour guides and staff on my team is also important since my guests are eager to learn about the history and culture of South Korea as well,” she says.
Day tours organised to explore K-drama filming sites tend to focus on Seoul, and the more comprehensive, focussed K-drama tours pick multiple cities which include Seoul, Busan and Jeonju. While these cities can be accessed by road, Jeju island, another hotspot for K-drama filming is accessible only by flight, and needs a dedicated tour of its own.
While many already famous tourist sites like the Lotte World theme park or the Namsan Tower feature in K-dramas, there are a host of other locations that are not on the usual tourist itineraries. Local tourism organisations have for a while now been catering to tourists who have made a beeline for the country enamoured by the Hallyu wave.
“In the 2000s, we saw tourists wanting to visit Nami Island which was featured in the then popular K-drama Winter Sonata. It is however from 2015 that we have seen a sharp increase in such tourists, interested in K-pop and K-dramas and wanting to visit such locations,” says Carlos Lee, sales and marketing manager with Korean travel company HanaTour ITC. “Among HanaTour’s most successful packages is a tour of the home and surroundings where BTS filmed the second season of its reality show In the Soop.” The show had members unwind for a few days at a house in scenic surroundings in Pyeongchang, complete with a camping zone, an outdoor pool and a volleyball court.
“This tour featured amongst the top travel experiences in Asia in 2023, curated by travel portal TripAdvisor,” he adds. Priced at $146 per person, participants are taken in a bus from Seoul to Pyeongchag for a day, and the company advertises it as a tour that makes it easy to visit places that are not easy to visit as an individual traveller. The tour also includes a pitstop at the bus stop at Hyangho beach, which featured in the BTS song ‘Spring Day‘, and also was the cover for their album You Never Walk Alone.
The joy of community
The feeling of travelling as a group and enjoying these locales as a community is what defines these tour experiences. Content creator and influencer Sherry Shroff, who recently announced a K-drama tour partnering with South Korea-based company Goodmate Travel says that having a group of like-minded people travelling together makes the experience all the more enriching and exciting.
Sherry Shroff on a recent visit South Korea | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“I realised that watching K-dramas feels different from other shows, given that we are invested in and aware of so many aspects of the lives of the characters we see — the culture, fashion, and food for instance,” Sherry says. On her last trip to South Korea, Sherry says she realised how true this is. “I walked into a convenience store post midnight to pick up instant ramen, sausages and a nori(seaweed) snack — something I’ve seen many, many times in my favourite shows,” she laughs, describing these smaller experiences that add to the joy of visiting the country.
Sherry’s eight day K-Drama tour (priced from $3,150 onwards) will cover Seoul, Jeonju, Busan and Gyeongju, and include K-drama filming locations, a cooking class experience, and a stay in a hanok (a traditional Korean house).
The idea for a tour, she says, was born out of extensive research and conversations with the members of her online K-drama club on Facebook. “Partnering with a local company like Goodmate Travel, also ensures the ease of travel and information. There is a big difference between travelling as a tourist and wanting to experience things from a local perspective, and my tour hopes to give the authentic experience with the emphasis not just on dramas, but Korean culture and food,” she adds.
Sherry has also shared popular vlogs, documenting her travel experiences in South Korea | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Over the years, with newer shows and movies releasing, filming locations have enjoyed the spotlight. Following the release of the 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite, many travel companies offered tours of the houses where the film was shot.
While planning a recent holiday to South Korea, Sonali Pawar, a Delhi resident says that her itinerary was largely motivated by places she had seen in K-dramas, even if not the exact locations or shooting spots. “The vibrant streets of Itaewon, the ivy-covered Yonsei University building, and the Deoksugung palace stonewall, which features in the shows Run On andExtraordinary Attorney Woowere some of the places I visited,” she said.
Apart from checking out popular spots that have a significance to BTS such as Magnate Cafe in Busan , Sonali says, “It truly hit me, about where exactly I was when I went to Pohang, where Hometown Cha Cha Cha was shot. It truly felt surreal, to see all these places that I’ve seen in my favourite shows,” she adds.
Given how the enthusiasm for K-dramas does not seem to be dying down anytime soon, if you plan a trip to South Korea, make time to run through the Hanbyeokgul tunnel in Jeonju from Twenty-Five Twenty-one, or explore Jumunjin beach where the goblin first encounters Ji Eun-tak in Guardian: Lonely and the Great God.
Published - August 01, 2024 07:49 pm IST
