Joanna Gaines on How Her First Trip to South Korea 'Felt Like Home' While Learning About Her Family's History

“Seoul is the place our family’s story begins, and I couldn’t wait to experience it for the first time" Gaines said in the cover story the latest issue of Magnolia Journal, exclusively shared with Travel + Leisure.

Travel is a more powerful experience than we often give it credit for. It can help us unwind from stress and return renewed. It can give us new experiences we’ll talk about for years and provide a new appreciation for the world around us. And sometimes, if we’re really lucky, it can teach us a thing or two about where we came from and bring us closer to the ones we love. And that’s exactly what happened to Joanna Gaines on her recent journey to South Korea.

In the new spring issue of Magnolia Journal, Gaines is sharing insights from her quest to dig deeper into her heritage with a trip through Seoul alongside her mother, Nan Stevens, husband, Chip Gaines, and their children — and even shares a chance encounter with a long-lost aunt.

“Seoul is the place our family’s story begins, and I couldn’t wait to experience it for the first time,” writes Gaines in the cover story, shared exclusively with Travel + Leisure. “It was odd to say out loud, being that I’d never been to South Korea — and given the 14-hour time difference and the thousands of miles that separated it from anything I’d ever known. But being there did feel like being home.”

In the piece, Gaines reveals more of her mother’s story, and how, as an 18-year-old girl living in South Korea, she dreamt of running away to a new place. And, after meeting Gaines’ father, Jerry, at a party while he was stationed in the country for his military service, that wish came true.

“We got to connect with my mom’s story, and my dad’s, in a way that made our own feel more complete,” Gaines wrote. “My kids got to see their grandparents in a new light. I think that’s the beauty of leaning into our culture and history: You just don’t know what’s waiting for you in those chapters you might not have even been a part of. For us, the look back was worth the journey.”

As for Nan, it was the chance to discover that not everything she left behind was lost. After searching for months leading up to their trip, she was able to track down her sister, whom she hadn’t seen or spoken to in decades. And, after a warm hotel lobby embrace, the two were inseparable for the remainder of their stay.

“My mom was loving showing us around, but I could tell that the more she relived and retold, she was rediscovering bits of herself too. Parts she’d left behind here on purpose, and finding herself ready to pick those pieces back up again,” Gaines shared. “Despite the pain she may have experienced here as a young girl, she was coming back whole and healed.”

Though the space was familiar, the Gaines crew still partook in plenty of tourist activities like any great family vacation requires, including seeing “the cherry blossoms in full bloom,” and visiting “the food markets, where the smell and taste of each ingredient reminded us of my mother and grandmother’s cooking.”

Only for Joanna, the trip provided something better than any souvenir she’d pick up in a shop.

“It just made me more sure than ever that our past doesn’t have to define our future,” she says. “Not if we’re willing to look beneath the ugly parts. Because there’s always beauty hiding there, just waiting to rise.”

Read the entire story in the new edition of Magnolia Journal when it hits newsstands Friday, Feb. 23.

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