San Gaboza sounds like an Italian company but its actually just the Korean phrase “산 가보자” meaning lets go to the mountain. This Korean company is a small firm operating through the Korean hiking community on Instagram. They have launched a seasonal hiking competition, with winter done and spring currently in effect. Over the course of two months you have to hike three mountains while waving their flag in a photo.
What sets them apart is the adorable swag, active social media engagement and their additional giveaways.
They can be found on Instagram (here) or through their official website (here).
The Socks
Their signature item is the socks. The socks are fire and when coupled with their matching color flag it makes for a cute photo.
If you decide you just like the socks and aren’t interested in the whole package, they can be purchased separately from their website (here) for 9,000원.
The winter package which is finished and not available was a blue and red theme with socks that looked trees on a mountain, while the spring socks have a vibrant rolling hills design.
The Package – Winter Edition
They have completed their first event (winter) and the second one (spring) is currently active, with each season having a different theme. The spring event is still active and will be running from March 17th to May 16th (2021).
You sign up through their website by buying the hiking package. They have you create an account, but the ‘account’ is only really for purchasing the product and making your next time purchase easier. They then mail it to you, and in classic Korean fashion, CJ will get it to you within 2-3 days. The package contains a range of products, with the selection changing each season.
Below is the winter season, which aside from the socks and flag, also included the pin for the winter edition, some cute stickers, hand warmers and athletic tape. The spring edition package is below as well – a little scrolling is needed).
You the have two months to complete 3 hikes. You can hike and get credit for any mountain you want. So its a great excuse to go conquer the mountain you have been putting off.
Also, I’m clearly lovin the socks, but if you find them cheesy you don’t have to wear them in the photo. I tend to be someone who likes to go all out for challenges so I made sure I was rocking them.
Upon completing the challenge and sending your photos to the company’s Kakao, you will receive a certificate of completion. Its cute and it was fun to see all the other people I know through the korean hiking Instagram community posting their own certificates.
Spring Edition – In Progress
You can still sign up!
The spring event is active from March 17th to May 16th. See the post from their official Instagram account for further details (below). As can be seen, you get socks, the flag, a pin, a snack, three plastic bags to collect trash while hiking and a reusable food/sandwich bag (good quality!)
The price of the Spring event is 30,000원. For more information about the individual items or the purchase it, you can go to their website (here)
I ordered the Spring package and I got it mailed to my house within three days. It came it this adorable box which is easy to recognize. The winter edition had a different design – they clearly have put in a lot of effort to make the events more exciting.
Also! If you have issues with your Korean bank account they make it simple to pay. You can transfer the money through an ATM instead of through their website! Very nice
I’ve started the spring event this week (third week of march) by hiking my local mountain here in Daegu, 초례산. I love this small little mountain behind by house and its a frequent adventure for me.
I’ve used this challenge as my excuse to hike mountains not on the Black Yak 100 Mountain Challenge. For more information on that competition you can check out my detailed post (here)
Special Events Through the Competition
During the winter event they hosted 3 different giveaways. This one is the largest one – the other ones were for free snacks and hand warmers.
I actually won the middle prize from the larger giveaway for the winter edition (as seen below), so that was exciting. They selected people based on whatever criteria they were using ( I’m thinking it was social media engagement based?), and winning required no extra effort to sign up. They just announced it and DMed me for an address. The value of that prize was actually about the same as the whole package – so I’m in the black 🙂
I received my prize a couple days later and it was a full utensil set from United Blue.
Let me know of you are joining the Spring event!
DM on my Insta: @adventurous.aurora
Happy Trekking,
-Aurora
