Annyeong from Busan

DealBusan is the Busan chapter of a simple idea we started in Seoul: a short, foreigner-first guide to one Korean city, done properly, before moving to the next one.

We came south because the food is the story here. Busan is a port city wrapped by three seas, and its raw fish, pork-broth gukbap and cold milmyeon are things Seoul can't copy. So we built the guide we'd want on the ground: what to eat, where to go, and how to get around, all in plain English.

Our restaurants and sights are drawn from the Korea Post (우체국) 2026 recommended-restaurant guide for Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam, a vetted public-sector list. We translate each entry, sort it by district, add the signature dish, prices, opening hours and a real photo, and mark how many years running it was picked.

The rule is source or nothing: if we can't back a detail, we leave it blank rather than guess. Hours and menus still change, so every page says to confirm before you go.

DealBusan is edited by Young Cho, founder of Deal Labs (LinkedIn). Born and raised in Seoul for 20 years, then two decades in the United States and Canada through school and university, and worked as a pilot in both countries.

That split life is the whole point: a Korean's read on the country, written for the foreign visitor who needs it explained plainly. Every pick is checked against one question: would this actually help someone who just landed?

DealBusan is one of the city guides made by Deal Labs, a Seoul travel-tech studio building foreigner-first guides one city at a time, starting with DealSeoul.

Deal Labs also publishes open-data travel reports at deallabs.net: the DealLabs City Index, an open-data ranking of 100 travel cities, and the Seoul Pop-up Market Report.