Tour Program
This is not a tour of Seoul. This is a tour of the Korea that most visitors never see — and the one that matters most to its future.
Truly Local takes students into Korea's rural regions to experience the daily life, food, and culture of communities beyond the capital. But more than experience, this program is built around a question that every developing nation faces: what happens to the places that get left behind — and what can be done about it?
Korea has confronted rural decline head-on. Through programs like the New Village, regional tourism development initiatives, and government-backed local revival projects, Korea has experimented — with mixed but instructive results — in how to keep rural communities alive, relevant, and worth visiting. Students learn these strategies not from a textbook, but by standing inside the communities they shaped.
*Duration and pricing are subject to change depending on regions visited and number of days
Regions
Yeongwol
- Once a coal mining town that faced near-complete collapse after the coal industry died — Yeongwol reinvented itself as an unlikely arts and nature destination. Today it hosts more museums per capita than almost anywhere in Korea, alongside river rafting on the Donggang and one of the country's darkest night skies. A town that had nothing left decided to become interesting instead.
- [Focus Point: When a town's original industry disappears, what gives it permission to become something completely different?]