Review of My Lovely Journey / 여행을 대신해 드립니다

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I tend to write about everything under the sun that I come across. Sometimes I don’t write blog posts about the content and entertainment I consume simply because I don’t feel like it, but I find that writing reviews and reflecting on movies, books, and television allows me to remember it more—and it serves as a bit of an archive for when I start to forget about it.

In 2025 I was on such a Korean drama kick, and I did end up expanding into other kinds of regional television, which you’ll see through my blog posts and archives, but I was really on top of my dramas. I kind of fell off that cliff in September, as I started an 8-5 job and went to Turkey for a trip, but I’m falling back into the grind slowly but surely.

This post was meant to come out a while ago, but I ended up starting the job and pushed it back on my editorial calendar because I didn’t feel like writing for a while. Like how I fell off of watching shows, I wasn’t writing as much, which depressed me in so many different ways. It genuinely felt like my life was becoming my job and the time I needed to unwind from it rather than the others things I wanted to do with my life.

Anyways, I’m getting back into the swing of things. My Lovely Journey is a show I watched in real-time through Viki, as I was really trying to get use out of my subscription to there. I was watching each week as new episodes were dropping, and although I missed the last week because of starting my job, I finished it a few weeks after the finale came onto the site.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to keep rambling about other things, or we’ll be waiting another year before this post comes out.

A former K-pop idol transitions into a life of being a travel journalist, learning how to be more meaningful in the process.

Our main character in this show is Kang Yeo-reum, who, as we see throughout the many flashbacks scattered throughout the episodes, used to be an idol in a girl group. Her idol career didn’t see her as the center of attention, and, through those flashbacks, she’s finding her footing now in a new career.

She’s now a travel reporter, which is an interesting concept. I would totally take this kind of job if it were available and more accessible, that’s for sure. Throughout the episodes in this series, Yeo-reum is traveling throughout Korea and uncovering the stories and people attached to places.

And there’s a lot for her to learn through these kinds of interactions, as well as the viewers of her show. A lot of life lessons are applied, as well as both heart warming and devastating stories that teach you to not be too complacent in your own life and to not take others for granted.

There’s also a lot of inner turmoil happening for Yeo-reum when she goes on these kinds of trips, as while she can leave behind her normal life and see what’s out there in the world, she has a lot of her own anxieties and fears to grapple with. Sure she’s a professional when it comes to getting the job done—as expected from a former idol—but she’s going to grow as a character throughout the series.

I don’t think we go too deep though with Yeo-reum in a way that was productive for me—there was something missing about this show. I loved the concept and the lack of romance (there is some, but I would in no way classify this as a romance drama), but I felt like we were just scratching the surface of what she was dealing with and learning to grow from. It felt superficial—that’s the language I’m trying to get at with this statement.

There are other characters, such as Sang-sik, who has been Yeo-reum’s manager in the past and someone who continues to be a persistent figure in her life. He was the reason she was brought into the entertainment industry to begin with, which might harbor some feelings of guilt on his end because of how it impacted Yeo-reum mentally and as a person. She’s a bit of a punching bag for other people, which I was not surprised by from what I know of Korean entertainment systems.

Overall Thoughts

I kind of already dug a little into my thoughts in the previous section. I enjoyed watching this show, and thought that it had a lot of meaningful messages to walk away with, but I wanted more from it. And sometimes when you love something and want it to be more better you critique it—that’s me with this show.

As I wrote before, I wanted it to go deeper. It feels like it’s too short and rushed in its current form, and while I can see someone really liking this, I wanted more from it. Simple and slice of life shows are my cup of tea, so this fell into my lap at a perfect time in my life (I wanted more of a simple life while typing this), which is why I thought this would be right up my alley to begin with.

I’m being a little nit-picky, so if you haven’t watched the show and are meaning to, give it a chance! I still did enjoy it a lot, and I think that I could see a lot of people liking this kind of show if they give it a few episodes before making a decision. Taste is so incredibly subjective at the end of the day, so what I might love you might not like (and vice versa). So try everything out for yourself.

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