Korea with children, which is easier than most places

Korea is an easy country to travel with children. Public attitudes towards young families are warm to the point of interventionist — expect strangers to interact with your child, offer food, and occasionally take over entertaining them briefly.

Infrastructure is good. Nursing rooms are standard in department stores, large stations and rest areas, and are usually clean and well equipped. Changing facilities are common.

Restaurants are broadly relaxed about children, and communal seating means nobody is surprised by a family at the next table.

Theme parks are a major domestic institution and are genuinely good. Everland and Lotte World are the large ones; regional parks are smaller, cheaper and much less crowded.

Interactive museums are unusually strong here — science centres, folk villages with hands-on crafts, and a large number of small themed museums built around a single subject.

The east coast beaches in summer, the ice fishing festivals in winter, and any of the larger regional festivals all work well for children, largely because Korean festivals are built with families as the assumed audience.

Food is the main friction. Korean cooking is spicier than most children are used to, and the assumption of shared dishes makes ordering something plain harder than it sounds. Learning to ask for a dish to be made non-spicy is worth doing.

Long hiking routes are not child-friendly, and Korean mountain trails are steeper than their distances imply. Choose valley routes and temple approaches rather than summits.

Buggies are difficult in older neighbourhoods and traditional markets, where pavements are narrow, uneven or absent. A carrier is more practical in those settings.

Children travel free or at reduced rates on most public transport, and the age thresholds are generous.

Convenience stores are everywhere and stock milk, snacks and basic supplies at ordinary prices — useful in small towns where nothing else is open.

Pharmacies are plentiful but close earlier than you would expect. Carry any regular medication rather than assuming you can buy it in the evening.