Aloha NomadHers!

I’m Aude, an intern from the NomadHer team. From the 23rd of April 2022, the NomadHer team hosted a NomadHer Busan Surf Camp, in South Korea. Let me tell you our stories about how we have initiated this surf camp, and how the NomadHer team has prepared the meet-up together.

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How did the NomadHer team decide to organize a camp?

Meeting female globetrotters from all around the world was really the motivation to host this NomadHer surf camp in Busan in South Korea. During our different past meetups, we have remarked that women are connecting with each other, no matter their ages or nationalities. However, it can be hard to have deep conversations in a short time and create true friendships with each other when the meetup lasts only for 2 or 3 hours.

Trying a bigger and longer meetup was the ideal to see if NomadHers could build stronger moments and relationships. So after a lot of brainstorming sessions, the NomadHer team, the app for the female globetrotters community thought “Why not go on a trip with NomadHers?”

That’s how the idea of creating the NomadHer Busan surf camp was born.

Why did we choose the city of Busan?

As you may know, South Korea is one of the safest countries for solo female travelers, and NomadHer team members Hyojeong, Soyeon, and Aude were in Seoul 🇰🇷 So we wanted to try to hold a NomadHer Surf camp in South Korea.

Even though the team was in Seoul, Busan appeared clearly as the best place to solo travel as a woman, and therefore, to hold ****the surf camp. ✨

First of all, Busan is the city where Hyojeong, the founder of NomadHer, grew up. So it represents a fairly strong symbolism for NomadHer.🌸

Busan is also highly recommended for solo female travelers who are visiting for the first time in South Korea. As soon as you arrive, you feel welcomed by the local people and the warm atmosphere. Busan is known for the beautiful landscapes, between the sea and the mountains, but also for all the water sports, such as surfing, you can do. Busan City then appeared to be the perfect destination for us.

💡 Do you want to know more about Busan?

You can read the NomadHer guidebook “Is Busan safe for solo female travelers?”.

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How did we create the NomadHer surf camp?

NomadHer camp was designed with 4 purposes :

• To create deep connections between NomadHers.
• Make NomadHers feel relaxed with female travel companions.
• Inspire NomadHers through the activities and the different encounters.
• Test New NomadHer Business Plan.

The objective of the surf camp in Busan was to find the kind of activities that could enable NomadHers to enjoy their time in Busan as well as reach those goals.

After asking NomadHers what they wanted to do and doing some research, we thought about surf and yoga as the main activities to organize the best trip for solo female travelers.

🏄‍♀️ Surfing is perfect to create a good dynamic in the group, NomadHers can encourage each other, and laugh together.

🧘‍♀️Yoga, on the opposite, enable NomadHers to reconnect with themselves, talk to their body, and find peace in their mind.

But these activities had to be meaningful, and impactful with inspiring women who could share their stories.

Two days in Busan with NomadHers!

Saturday, April 23rd - Surfing Day!

NomadHer surf camp started on Saturday afternoon with a surfing class on Songjeong Beach in Busan 🏖️

💡 About Songeong Beach (송정 해수욕장), Busan : Songjeong Beach is well known for having large waves. We recommend you to visit in the late afternoon to enjoy the thrills of waves. It is an attractive experience to enjoy surfing on the golden ocean where the sun sets. Recently, other maritime sports also became available including paddle boating. Get ready to dive into the charms of the sea of Songjeong while enjoying maritime sports.

During our surfing class, all NomadHers felt the NomadHer community spirit. They outdid themselves, tried something new, and had the support of others.

💁‍♀️ Nala Lee, our teacher, is a national player on the Korean surfing team. For her, “There is no same wave in the sea. that means every day is a different day to me. I feel alive when I surf. I’ve learned achievement and failure through surfing and it makes me grow. Life is like surfing. I hope every woman has a try this.”

And she really helped us challenge ourselves. Of course, it was hard to stand on the board, so we also accepted failure, but without giving up! And all of us ended up surfing the Busan waves 🌊by

Nala started by explaining her relationship with surfing and how it enabled her to grow and evolve. We all felt her passion and motivation for the surf, and it really inspired us to overcome our fears and the difficulties we can face in life 👊

After receiving the boost of motivation, it was time to learn the basic movements to surf the waves!

And after the theory comes to the practice! By repeating, first, the movements on the sand, we really understood the posture to adopt and gain confidence. Then, all NomadHers dived into the sea of Busan and tried to stand on the surfboards 🌊 Nala was in the water with us and another teacher joined to accompany the group. They helped us to catch the waves and gave us advice after each tries to improve our postures and movements.

At first, we felt down a lot from our boards, we had difficulty finding balance. But we all laughed together and encourage each other 🥰

After several tries, all NomadHers succeeded in standing on the surfboards! 🏄‍♀️

After a few hours of enjoying the sea, two groups were organized to have dinner. 😋

The first group went to a delicious vegan restaurant called Bistro & Cafe Home🌿and the other one went to enjoy a traditional Korean barbecue called SamgyeopSal at Goban Sikdang🍗 During the dinner, we took time to get to know each other, we spoke about our travels, and shared tips. The Korean NomadHers explained must-try dishes in South Korea as well as good places to go to the French NomadHers. French and Korean cultures were mixed all together, and it was so nice to open our minds together! 🇫🇷 🇰🇷

💡 About Bistro & Cafe Home : Address: 5 Jungdong 2-ro 26beon-gil, Haeundae-gu, Busan Open :

Wed-Fri : 6:00pm-12:00am

Sat : 6:00pm-1:00am.

Closed Mon-Wed.

💡 About Goban Sikdang : Address: 540-14 U-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan Open:

Mon-Thu : 3:00pm-11:00pm

Fri-Sun : 11:30am-11:00pm

At the end of the day, we had a Korean-style sleepover. Did you know that it is very common for Koreans to sleep on the floor? 😴 Back in the day, they created heated floors, also called “Ondol”, which means warm floor. So most Korean houses heat floors, not air, to warm their rooms. And also, in Korean culture, they have very close family ties, so it is natural to share rooms together ❤️

The accommodation we had was illustrating the Korean heritage and enabled non-Korean participants to discover a new aspect of the Korean culture.

💡 What is the Ondol? Ondol (온돌;溫突), also known as goodle (구들) or banggoodle (방구들), is an underfloor heating system that has kept traditional houses in Korea warm for thousands of years. In its traditional form, the ondol utilizes direct heat transfer from wood smoke to the underside of a thick masonry floor. In modern times, the term ondol refers to any type of under-floor heating in Korean housing.

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Sunday, April 24th - Yoga and discovery of Busan!

Our yoga class started at 6 am on Sunday morning on the beautiful Haeundae beach, right in front of the sea, with a stunning sunrise view!

💡 About Haeundae beach (해운대해수욕장), Busan Haeundae Beach is the most famous beach in Busan and in South Korea. You can enjoy the perfect summer vacation there, on the white sand, with a beautiful coastline. Many festivals and cultural events are also held on Haeundae Beach in June and August. At Folk Square of this beach, you can learn traditional games like neoldduigi (seesaw jumping), Korean wrestling, tug-of-war, tuho (arrow throwing) and Yutnori. So if you are coming to Busan, you definitely need to add it to your itinerary!

🙆‍♀️ Jinseo Ye, our teacher,  is a yoga expert and has held many yoga programs in forests and near rivers. She has a lot of interest in finding inner peace, sustainability, the environment, and vegan life. And she loves traveling alone as a woman.

By doing yoga in the early morning on the beautiful Haeundae beach with Jinseo, we really awoke our bodies slowly and experienced the feeling of peace and freedom.

🌅 Jinseo could explain to us the benefits she is receiving from yoga and we learned all the values and strengths related to yoga. She showed us some movements and helped us to execute them correctly. 🧘‍♀️

By doing slow movements, we focused on our bodies and spirits, and felt relaxed but strong and powerful at the same time 😌 And to be honest, there were a lot of funny moments because some postures were more difficult to hold, so we could laugh together and try again to hold!

Once our yoga session is done, a good homemade breakfast was waiting for us at our accommodation. After eating fruits, yogurt, vegetables, and cereals, some of us fell asleep directly on the warm floor 😄 while others were chatting about travel and life in general. It was really a peaceful moment and we appreciated it together.

But let’s enjoy the rest of the day to go outside and discover Busan 😎 Hyojeong took us for a small tour to enjoy the landscapes. We went to Haeundae Dongbaekseom Island which has a beautiful coastline! Originally, it was a real island 🏝️ but years of sedimentation have connected the island to the mainland. With a fresh breeze from the sea and forest, you can feel nature all the time! So we walked together, seeing different monuments, and were amazed by the view of the Busan shoreline.

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What are NomadHers thoughts about the NomadHer surf camp?

👉 “I loved how we ended up doing many things in the two days we were there. It’s always good to feel like you’re busy and moving about when you’re on a retreat - at least for me!”

“I loved the interactions with the different girls! Meal times were best to get to know each other as well as our walk-in 동백섬 (Dongbaekseom**)**”. **

💁‍♀️ From Soo Min, 29 years old, having lived in France, Hong Kong, and South Korea but now living in Sweden!

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👉 “I liked the teaching, first the theory then the practice on the beach and then in the water about surfing in Busan, South Korea. I found the explanation from the teacher very clear.”

“I think it could have been nicer to stay longer maybe 3 days to really enjoy Busan with other solo female travelers”.

💁‍♀️ From Nathalie, 23 years old, who came from France to spend 3 months in South Korea!

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👉 “I loved the dinner, hanging out together and visiting the Dongbaek Island!”

“All were great. All the NomadHer staff worked hard and a huge shout out to the NomadHer team!”.

💁‍♀️ From Yoo Jin, is around 50 years old, and she knows all the good places to go in South Korea.

Overall, we really connected and had deep conversations with each other. NomadHers could meet other NomadHers they would have never met in their daily life 👭 It was a real cultural exchange as we could learn more about Korean and French culture. So it was really enriching for each of us to meet inspiring women from different parts of the world 🌏

But it was so much fun, the weekend went by a breakneck speed. We all would have loved to stay longer because we really enjoyed those 2 days together!

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What is coming next?

Based on the feedback of the NomadHers, we understood that this kind of camp was really appreciated, but too short.

So we are now organizing longer women’s retreat camps but in Europe and South Korea! 🌍

During June 12-18, we successfully held a 6-day camp on Madeira Island, Portugal, and more are coming. It will be a unique chance to meet all-female globetrotters with inspiring stories from all different parts of the world and create international friendships 👭

Are you ready to join us in our next camp?

Join us on the NomadHer app and check the meetup section! You will find all the details and the registration link to join our NomadHer Madeira camp!

We are waiting for you! 🔥

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