KAD Life: Planning a Trip to Korea – Part 2 – Paperwork

As mentioned in my previous post “KAD Life: Planning a Trip to Korea – Part 1 – Desire”, I purchased a ticket to go to Seoul in September of 2021. It will be my first time returning to Korea since I was adopted internationally.

Since then, possibly because of Covid-times, I’ve spent countless hours tracking down the files I will need to travel to Korea. This includes some optional documentation that I’ve opted to pursue because of certain preferences I have (for instance, applying for Quarantine Exemption which you can read about in my post “How to Apply for Quarantine Exemption as a KAD”).

As a note, this list is a running list of any and all “paperwork” (files, documents, tickets, reservations, subscriptions) that I’ve gathered for my trip to Korea. They are in no particular order, but the top 6 are bare-minimum requirements. Not all of these are “needs”, some are preferences. My goal in sharing them is so that anyone else planning a trip to Korea has a consolidated list that they can consult as a place to start or even just as a mid-planning sanity-check.

List of Paperwork for a Trip to Korea:
1. Plane ticket & boarding pass (I went with Korean Air). Some folks suggest have a proof of your flight back, too, if doing a round-trip.
2. Valid passport and/or license for additional identification
3. K-ETA travel visa (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/SouthKorea.html#ExternalPopup)
4. Negative Covid test (PCR issued within 72 hours of departure) – at least 1 physical copy in English and/or Korean
5. Proof of Covid vaccination
6. Korean contact information (names, addresses, phone numbers)
7. Quarantine exemption (How To: Apply for a Quarantine Exemption to Visit Family as a KAD) – 4 physical copies
8. F4 visa (https://goal.or.kr/f-4-visa/)
9. American contact information (names, addresses, phone numbers)
10. Lodging reservation (proof of reservation, location, dates, contact)
11. Traveler’s insurance (I went with Travel Guard)
12. Cell phone plan (I went with a Sim card)
13. Transportation (T-money)
14. Currency (Credit card, debit, Korean won)
15. International driver’s license

I hope that this list of paperwork for a trip to Korea is helpful! I’ve found that planning for my trip has been a lot of research with many threads of action all over the place. For myself, I’m planning to have all 15 things from this list prepared before take-off. However, each person is different and while I find comfort in extra-prepared-ness and things like future-proofing, not everyone will find value in the same things.

I hope that any KADs reading and preparing for their first trip back to Korea find this to be a useful post!

여러분 사랑해요!
– Learning to be Korean ❤