Bart van Genugten, a Dutch YouTuber who operates the channel IGoBart, films an episode with a handheld recording device in downtown Seoul, April 7. Courtesy of iGoBartSitting down with Bart van Genugten, one of the most popular Korean travel vloggers both in and out of Korea, is like spending time with a sort of mythical creature. It’s always a unique experience meeting someone in real life whom you’ve watched for dozens, if not hundreds, of hours online on his YouTube channel, iGoBart. Many will know Bart from his “Welcome to my Dong” series, wherein he is attempting to visit, explore and document every single one of Seoul’s 467 neighborhoods, which are known in Korean, somewhat unfortunately to English speakers, as “dong.” A noble goal, to be sure, and one that is not even halfway finished, even after years. Bart van Genugten, left, poses with Hechi, the mascot of Seoul, after winning a social media award for his YouTube channel IGoBart, at Seoul City Hall, Oct. 1, 2025. Courtesy of iGoBartI sat down with Bart at a cafe in his neighborhood of Bomun-dong to talk about his larger mission — one that has seen him venturing beyond the borders of Seoul, and even Korea, in a handful of instances. But why leave Seoul? Isn’t Seoul the be-all and end-all of Korea? Bart muses, “Seoul is not Korea.” I press him to expand further. “If you go out (of Seoul), you have all these different cultures, different foods, different dialects, different personalities, different mountains, different coastlines,” he says. “You can go to Seoul on vacation then go back home. You cannot really say, ‘I’ve seen Korea.’”Bart van Genugten, right, a Dutch YouTuber who operates the channel IGoBart, interviews a resident of central Seoul's Haebangchon, Aug. 24, 2024. Korea Times photo by Jon DunbarWhere has all this love of travel taken him? For one, to the Chinese border city of Dandong, overlooking the Yalu River that separates China from North Korea. Some of Bart’s most popular videos are his visits to the North and its environs. One shows him going up Mount Paektu, the tallest peak on the Korean Peninsula. Bart advises me, a Canadian used to the cold, on what one should do if they end up on the slopes of this 2,744-meter behemoth. “Rent the winter clothes that they have there,” he says. “It was minus 23 degrees Celsius. I thought my eyes were genuinely freezing out of my head.” Bart van Genugten, right, a Dutch YouTuber who operates the channel IGoBart, poses in the snow after climbing the Chinese side of Mount Paektu, which straddles the Chinese-North Korean border, March 18, 2025. Courtesy of IGoBartA Taedonggang beer at a bar in Dandong, China, March 14, 2025 / Courtesy of iGoBartAfter a day like that, one deserves a stiff drink. As a beer advocate, brewer and connoisseur myself, I knew I had to ask Bart about his experience in Dandong, where he miraculously came upon an actual North Korean beer brewery, Taedonggang Brewing. “I looked on the Chinese map app and there was a ‘3’ symbol, which was the symbol for one of their beers. They number their different beers. One for pilsner, two is a weak lager, etc.” Having remembered this exact symbol from his prior travels to the North, he decided to poke his head inside. “It looked like a Chinese restaurant, but everything was Korean. North Korean music, only Taedonggang beer, only North Korean food.” I am skeptical at first. Was this a real North Korean Taedonggang Brewery in China, or was it a copy or a tribute? “I saw the brewery,” he insists. “It’s an affiliate of the headquarters, like a branch of it.” I joke that they might have thought he was a European spy, and Bart laughs. “No, it’s worse because I live in South Korea! It’s even more suspicious.” Occasionally, in a new series, Bart will go international without even leaving Seoul. He does this by meeting with ambassadors of various countries and going to places they like to frequent in Seoul, while discussing life in Korea as well as their goals as a diplomat. I inquire about how this started, and Bart tells me something I wouldn’t have guessed in a hundred years. “I went on a TV show on Arirang and the host, she had a project with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The host is a kind of cultural ambassador. Every few months, she will invite all the female ambassadors in Seoul to tea or lunch.” Bart... where exactly do you fit in here? “I’m not sure, but she invited me to go there. All the female ambassadors. And then there was me.” We both laugh. Despie the unexpected invitation, this would prove to be a gold mine for Bart and his channel. Business cards were exchanged at that lunch, and a new series of videos was launched on his channel, starting with the Irish ambassador, then the Canadian envoy and so many more. Which ambassadors are Bart’s dream interviews? “Japan, Russia and America.” Good luck, Bart.Bart van Genugten, right, a Dutch YouTuber who operates the channel IGoBart, prepares for a bike ride with Dutch Ambassador to Korea Peter van der Vliet in Seoul, Feb. 18, 2024. Courtesy of iGoBart Now that he’s up to 276,000 subscribers and almost 50 million total views, I ask Bart about the inner workings of doing this as a full-time career. How has his audience reacted to the new direction of his channel? From a business point of view, he says, changing the types of videos you make can be a bad decision, because the new viewers won’t watch your old content and the old ones might not like the new stuff you make. This is exactly why Bart has continued doing the “Welcome to my Dong” series. He considers it the bedrock of his channel and says it’s for the people who “like to see me traveling, like to learn something, who like to explore. Who like to learn about Seoul.” It’s a niche but stable way of getting views — and getting paid. Bart van Genugten, right, a Dutch YouTuber who operates the channel IGoBart, walks down a street in downtown Seoul with Mr. Lee, owner of a printing factory in the area, April 7. Courtesy of IGoBartBart also has a lot of videos interviewing Dutch veterans of the 1950-53 Korean War. “They do much better,” he says. “They can get millions of views. People want to see the veteran talk, but it’s not sustainable. They are, unfortunately, getting older, and there are less and less of them. It’s important to document them, but I can’t do that every week.” While Bart might be “escaping the dong” here and there, it seems like his curiosity to explore Seoul, and being open to going into the nooks and crannies of this giant city and a love of all things urban, isn’t going anywhere. Bart will lead his first-ever in-person excursion for the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea on May 30. Titled “Colonial Scars, Ruins, and Mountain Legends: Exploring Ogin-dong Beneath Inwangsan,” it will lead people through central Seoul’s Seochon neighborhood and up the slope of Mount Inwang. Participation costs 30,000 won, or 25,000 won for RAS Korea members. Visit raskb.com for more information.Kevin Grabb is a Canadian home brewer and YouTuber. His channel, Korea Brewing Adventure, covers Korean alcohol from production to consumption.