IGoBart expands adventures beyond Seoul’s neighborhoods

Sitting down with Bart van Genugten, one of the most popular Korean travel vloggers both in and out of Korea, is like spending time with a sort of mythical creature. It’s always a unique experience meeting someone in real life whom you’ve watched for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours online on his YouTube channel, iGoBart. Many will know Bart from his “Welcome to my Dong” series, wherein he is attempting to visit, explore and document every single one of Seoul’s 467 neighborhoods, which are known in Korean, somewhat unfortunately to English speakers, as “dong.” A noble goal, to be sure, and one that is not even halfway finished, even after years. I sat down with Bart at a cafe in his neighborhood of Bomun-dong to talk about his larger mission — one that has seen him venturing beyond the borders of Seoul, and even Korea, in a handful of instances. But why leave Seoul? Isn’t Seoul the be-all and end-all of Korea? Bart muses, “Seoul is not Korea.” I press him to expand further. “If you go out (of Seoul), you have all these different cultures, different foods, different

المصدر: The Korea Times