Participants aren't visiting Korea. They're returning to it. The same site read as a "historical landmark" on a typical tour becomes something else entirely once it's framed as ancestral ground: proof that someone in a participant's own bloodline endured enough for them to exist today. In Korea, mountains have long been treated as sacred, the meeting point of heaven and earth, not merely geographic features. For a Korean diaspora participant, walking those trails becomes a way of walking through their own family's history, not just the nation's.
At the center of the program is 뿌리 찾기 (Ppuri-chajgi), or root-seeking: a guided practice of tracing personal and ancestral roots that bridges family history with present-day identity. For many participants, it's the first time they've had structured space to ask where they come from and what that means for who they are now.
A day-by-day schedule isn't set yet, but the ten days are being designed around moments like these:
Before the trip
Participants start unearthing their own family history: what's known, what's still an open question, and which names, places, or stories they want to chase once they're on the ground.
During the journey
Participants walk clan and ancestral sites tied to their own bon-gwan (본관), the ancestral seat that anchors a Korean family's identity to a place, hear firsthand history from elders and village grandparents, and take part in rituals of honor at places like Imjingak Park, not as tourists reading a placard, but as descendants standing on the ground their family's survival was built on.
After they return
Participants are challenged to carry the line forward: to see themselves not as visitors to their heritage, but as its newest generation.
This is what gives the program its "vertical" connection, the line stretching back centuries, alongside the "horizontal" connection built through the peer cohort formed over the ten days. Both are part of what makes the sense of belonging feel unshakable.
This starts with people who believe it matters.
We're building something that doesn't exist yet, and we're building it early enough that the people who join now will help shape what it becomes.