The Times of London on Jan. 3 called Korea "the most exciting place to visit in 2024" in a travel article. (Screen capture from daily's website)

By Choi Jin-woo

British daily Times of London calls Korea "the most exciting" country to visit this year.

The newspaper on Jan. 3 covered the nation's tourist attractions in the article headlined "This small country is the most exciting place to visit in 2024."

Jane Mulkerrins, associate editor of The Times Magazine, said Seoul and Busan are safe places with delicious and cheap food where the past and present are uniquely mixed.

She introduced street foods such as eomuk (fishcake), gimbap (seaweed rice rolls), sundae (blood sausage) and hotteok (bun with sweet filling), as well as sharing her experience of eating tteokbokki (spicy rice cake) and bindaetteok (mung bean pancakes) at the crowded Gwangjang Market of Seoul.

Mulkerrins also praised Seoul's subway system for its cheap fares and spotlessly clean state where riders orderly line up in single file before trains arrive.

"The absence of street crime, hassle or harassment is tangible; as a woman traveling solo, I've rarely felt safer," she added.

"Beyond all that — plus a few rudimentary facts about the Korean War, which ruined North and South — I knew shamefully little about it before landing in the capital, Seoul. Thankfully, after a day spent dashing through some of its key sites — Gyeongbokgung Palace, Jogyesa Temple, the National Folk Museum of Korea — I feel a little more informed."

She described a jjimjilbang (sauna and spa) as "more like a cultural, social and entertainment complex than a spa" after visiting the world's biggest department store in Busan, given that the jjimjilbang was inside the store.

As for the port city's Gamcheon Culture Village, she called it "a shanty town built by refugees in the 1950s and 1960s and now a brightly painted, Insta-friendly collection of arts projects and commercial outlets."

"With TV shows such as Squid Game (Netflix's most watched series, the second season of which is in production) and the Oscar-winning film Parasite, plus wildly popular bands including BTS and Blackpink, the country’s cultural output — the so-called 'Korean wave' — has fuelled an uptick in international tourism, including from the UK," she said.

paramt@korea.kr