My stay in Korea is over and having hitchhiked over 3500km with around 40 rides, I believe I can say a thing or two about catching a ride there.
First of all, hitchhiking in Korea is super easy. Even though I don't have that vast experience - in the past I covered around 2000km in France, and got literally few short rides in UK, Spain and Poland, I can definitely say that Korea is one of the best destinations for hitchhikers.
Korean kindness is amazing. My Korean friends claim that it's only towards foreigners and that Korean or Asians could never travel this way - even though we have proven that wrong - Koreans can hitchhike as successfully as foreigners, there may be a little bit of truth in it, so mind that i'm writing from foreigners' perspective.
Hitchhiking is obviously not common in Korea, so if you want to get a ride, you should definitely have a sign with specific destination, thumb is not enough, they will have no clue what you're trying to achieve. Specific destination also helps, probably with 90% of rides I got, I went straight to final destination. However, very often if your destination is quite far, they may not stop only because they are not going as far, even if they are going your direction.
You also have to be prepared for many people stopping just to tell you that it is dangerous what you are doing, and that it's impossible to travel that way - as i've already mentioned for Koreans many things are impossible...
Often people would stop to ask if you need a ride to bus station, and if you're somewhere else than at tollgates, be prepared for taxis stopping all the time - then you can use this magical phrase - don i oppsoyo (I don't have money) - and they will leave you alone right away.
When it comes to language, they rarely speak English, maybe 30-40 % of my drivers spoke basic English, so it's nice to learn some very basic Korean and try to have a super simple conversation - I always tried to do that. When the driver is willing to cooperate and help you, it can turn into an awesome conversation. Sometimes, though, when they notice your Korean is rather poor, they just stay quiet the whole ride.
But what I mean by Korean kindness? For me it's whole different topic, so here I will focus only on hitchhiking aspect. Since it's not very common way of travelling, Koreans are not aware that for hitchhikers, getting them fairly close to their destination is already a big thing, so they want to get you to your very specific destination. When coming back to Daegu I got plenty of rides straight to the gate of my university. Yesterday, for example, I got a ride straight to my host's place in Donghae.
Other thing is that they will very often ask you if you have eaten already. That usually means they are taking you for lunch/dinner. I've eaten several times with my drivers, and they would never let you pay... And if it's not eating time, most likely you will be offered at least a coffee.
When it comes to waiting time, if you are in a right spot - decent traffic, cars not going too fast, enough space to stop - and you are going to a popular destination, your waiting time should not be longer than 5 to 10 minutes. Of course sometimes you have to wait longer, but still, the longest period of time I had to wait was maybe 30 minutes, while going from Seoul (after dark) or from Gwangju to Daegu - that's quite far.
But the most amazing thing - that illustrates best Korean kindness - is when you get a ride even though the driver doesn't go your direction. It happened several times. For example on Jeju, we were trying to get a ride when suddenly one guy stopped to tell us that he can take us where we want to go, but he has to go home first and he will be back in 10 minutes. 10 minutes later he was there and took us to our destination, around 70 km from that place - he didn't even plan to leave the city that day. Another day, two of my friends were trying to get back to Daegu from Busan. One guy stopped, told them he's not going to Daegu but he could take them to toll gates. They agreed, but on the way the guy changed his mind and took them straight to the university - Daegu is around 100km from Busan. He wasn't planning to leave Busan that day neither...
Drivers inviting you to stay at their place is not uncommon either. It happened to some of us few times.
Oh, and cardboards - sometimes it may be difficult to find a clean piece of cardboard to write your destination - not in Korea! Cardboards are everywhere here, so you don't have to worry about that.
Anyway, hitchhiking in Korea is an awesome experience, I am very happy I decided to travel that way. It allowed me to see whole Korea, meet plenty of Koreans, get to know the culture better, try some local meals and of course save a lot of money. In total for transportation I spent around 85000 wons - around 80 USD (bus from Incheon to Daegu, bus from Daegu to Cheongju, flight to Jeju, Ferry from Jeju) which is less than return ticket to Seoul by KTX (local fast train).
There are very few bad people in this world and even fewer in South Korea - go hitchhiking!
'Don't be scared homie'
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