Seoul, South Korea is an incredible city full of so many incredible sights, delicious restaurants, and the best cafes. We visited Seoul in the spring of 2024 and loved every minute.
During our visit, the cherry blossoms were blooming and the weather was sunny and warm. In the last year, we have been watching a lot of K-Dramas, so we were excited to see Seoul and experience South Korea.
Even though we spent a week in Korea, we tried to pack in as much as we could. This guide puts together all of my recommendations to help you plan your trip to South Korea.
Things to do in Seoul
There are a ton of things to do in Seoul, but here are some of my favorites.
Hanok Villages
There are many different Hanok villages in Seoul. A hanok is a traditional Korean house. There are areas of the city where groups of these traditional hanok houses remain and can be visited. Some of the more popular hanok areas are nearby to Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung. We stayed the night in a hanok in Bukchon Hanok Village and loved the experience.
Some other popular Hanok Villages are Seochon Hanok Village and Ikseong-dong Hanok Village. The villages are great for wandering around, learning about Korea’s history, and popping into cute cafes and shops.

Starfield Library
Starfield library is a very aesthetic attraction, full of books and coffee shops. You have probably seen viral pictures of Starfield library on Instagram or Pinterest. It is actually located in the Starfield Mall, but does have books and magazines available. You may see a line of people waiting to get their picture on the escalator going up in front of all of the books.
My favorite part of visiting Starfield Library was the upstairs sitting area where you can sit in comfy seats, drink coffee from one of the many coffee shops located in the area, and look at all of the books.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza
Dongdaemun Design Plaza is a huge building that is both beautiful from the outside and has free art exhibits on the inside. The building is huge and a bit strange inside. Inside there are art exhibites but also large white hallways that spiral up and down the inside of the building. There is a courtyard in the middle outside that you can walk around in as well.
Dongdaemun Design Plaza would be somewhere good to visit on a rainy day. It is also close by to the Dongdaemun Market.

Gyeongbokgung
Gyeongbokgung is one of Seoul’s main palaces. It was constructed in the 1500’s and is a piece of Korean history. Here you can walk around many traditional buildings and see the large palace. There is also a beautiful pavilion surrounded by a large pond and beautiful trees. Many people rent traditional hanboks to wear to this historical palace.
My favorite part was wandering to the areas further back in the complex that were less crowded and felt like we had the place to ourselves. Make sure to give yourself enough time here to wander around through all of the grounds.

Changdeokgung
Changdeokgung is another famous palace with beautiful grounds. It is also from the 1500’s and is a UNESCO world heritage site. Here you can walk around many of the buildings and some of the grounds. There are many flowers and trees around the grounds here.
There is also a “Secret Garden” that is supposed to be very beautiful to see, however you must have special tickets to visit and they sell out quite early in the day. You have to go on a tour to see the garden. If you want to go on the Secret Garden Tour, I recommend getting in line for tickets very early in the day.

Namsan Tower
Namsan Tower and the surrounding park was one of my favorite places in Seoul. There are so many beautiful walking paths around the hill ad up to the tower. From the top of the hill where the tower is, you can see incredible views of the whole city.
You can walk to the top to see the tower, but there is also the option of taking a cable car or a bus.
In the spring when we went, there were incredible views of the cherry blossoms.
You can also go to the top of the tower. It would be especially nice to go to the top of the tower around sunset so you can see the colors of the sky, but also so that you can see all the city lights get brighter as the sun goes down. For more information on Namsan Tower and how to book tickets, see their website.

Lotte World Tower
Lotte World Tower is located south of the Han River and is near Lotte World. The tower is the 6th tallest building in the world. There is an observatory at the top to see more views of Seoul. Near the base of the tower is Lotte World amusement park and Seokchon Lake Park. We enjoyed walking around the lake and looking at the beautiful cherry blossoms that surround the lake.

Seoul Forest Park
Seoul Forest Park is a lovely park located near Seongsu. There are many different areas of the park with flower gardens, aviaries, deer viewing areas, and fountains. It is a beautiful place to walk around and enjoy nature while in Seoul.

Traditional Markets
There are so many incredible markets throughout Seoul. There are definitely some that are more touristy than others. Some of the markets are more food oriented, while others sell other goods.
Some of the popular markets are:
Myeongdong Street Food Market
Myeongdong is a very touristy and popular part of town. At night it is packed with vendors selling delicious street foods. My favorites we tried were the egg bread, teriyaki meat skewers, and cheesy potato corn dogs. Make sure to bring cash to pay for things here.

Namdaemun Market
Namdaemun Market is close to Seoul Central Station and Myeongdong. It has variety of food and goods. It tends to be pretty touristy.
Dongdaemun Market
Dongdaemun Market is a huge market that sells crafting supplies and home goods. As an avid knitter, I LOVED spending time here. The underground level is mostly where the fiber vendors are, selling yarn, thread, crocheted and knitted goods, and so much more. Yarn is stuffed in every corner and packed everywhere.

Noryangin Fish Market
If you want to see a fish market in Seoul, this is the place. It is a huge place with hundreds of stalls of people selling any kind of underwater creature to eat. It was so interesting to walk around looking at all of the different things that were being sold to eat. On the second floor there are many restaurants selling cooked seafood if you are wanting to try some Seoul seafood.

Overview of Areas of Seoul
Each area of Seoul felt like a different city to us. Although we spent most of our trip in Seoul, it felt like we went to 10 different cities as each part of the city feels so incredibly different.
Here are some of the main areas of Seoul that you should visit if you have time.
Myeongdong
Highlights: touristy area, many shops, open late at night, street food

Gangnam
Highlights: Starfield Library, Gangnam Style Statue, Bongeunsa Temple
Itaewon
Highlights: restaurants and shops, filming places for famous K-Dramas (such as Itaewon Class)

Hongdae
Highlights: street markets, unique cafes, college town vibe

Dongdaemun
Highlights: Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Heunginjimun Gate, Dongdaemun Market, Cheonggyecheon

Anguk and Bukchon Village
Highlights: In between Gwanghwamun and Changdeokgung, Hanok village area with artsy shops and many cute cafes, traditional Hanok village, very touristy
Seochon
Highlights: much less crowded area near palaces with quaint coffee shops, restaurants, and stores
Insadong and Ikseon-dong
Highlights: Hanok village with many small shops and cafes, famous salt bread
Namsan
Highlights: Namsan Tower, many walking trails with views of the city, beautiful flowers, cherry blossoms (in spring)

Seongdong
Highlights: Hip area with tons of cafes and nearby Seoul Forest Park with walking paths, cherry blossoms, and deer.

Jamsil
Highlights: Lotte World Tower, Lotte World, walking paths around Seokchon Lake, nearby the Olympic Park
How to get around Seoul
Walking
Seoul is best seen by walking. Some of my very favorite things that we saw, we just happened upon because we decided to walk between destinations. I really recommend walking to get a feel for the city. If you only take Taxis or public transportation between destinations, you will miss so much of what Seoul has to offer.
Metro
The way of transportation that we used the most by far was the metro. The Seoul Metro is super easy to navigate and pretty much everything is in English, so it is very easy to understand.
You can buy single ride tickets, but they are more expensive. Each single ride ticket can be returned for a 500 won deposit return. If you are only riding the metro a few times, then it would be fine to get single ride tickets.
If you are taking the metro many times, which you probably will if visiting many different parts of Seoul, I would recommend getting a T-money card. These cards are reloadable and are just tapped at the entrance of the metro line and when you exit.
I recommend getting a T-money card from a convenience store. Most (if not all) 7-elevens have them. There are many different options for you to choose your color and design. At the time of our visit, it was around $4-5 to buy the card. You can then reload it at the station.
There are machines in the station where you can get T-money cards, but I would recommend against this as you have to scan your passport and it is a whole ordeal.
Make sure you have cash as reloading T-money cards at the station require cash and they do not take card.
Look at the exit maps as there are so many entrances and exits from each metro station. If you get out at the wrong exit, you may end up walking an extra half mild that you weren’t intending to.

Taxis
Taxis are super cheap (compared to the United States where I am from). Choosing to go by taxi can be useful, especially if you are trying to get to a place that may be difficult with the metro system. There are a few different ways you can use taxi.
First, you can hail a taxi on the side of the road, however this can be a bit difficult if you do not know Korean. We learned the hard way that if you hail a taxi in this way, you need to have a screenshot of the address in Hangul (Korean lettering), as often-times taxi drivers are unfamiliar with the address if in English letters. I also would recommend giving an address that is a more well-known place nearby that will be easier for the driver to drop you off. For example, if you are wanting to go to a specific café that is only a block away from the Lotte Tower, give the address for the Lotte Tower as it will be much easier to communicate this and for the driver to find.
The second way (and the way that I would recommend) would be to use KakaoT. This app makes it so much easier to hail a taxi and have the exact address provided to the driver in map form for them to follow. After one time of hailing a taxi on the side of the road, we used this app for every time after and it made things much easier. Using the app, you can also be picked up in places where there may not be a ton of taxis to call.
In both ways, you can pay for taxi with card after the ride and even for rides that were 15-20 minutes, it cost only a few dollars, which was totally worth it to us.
Traveling between central Seoul and Incheon Airport
There are many ways to get to and from the airport, however train is the cheapest and fastest way to get to central Seoul from the airport.
There are 2 train options: the Arex Express Train or the All-Stop Train.
The Arex Express Train goes around every 30 minutes and has assigned seats. It is around $10 for an adult one way. It takes about 50 minutes to get from the airport to Seoul Central Station.
The All-Stop Train is more similar to the metro and does not have assigned seating. It stops at around 11 stops along the way. It is around $4 per person and leaves around every 10 minutes.
I would recommend All-Stop Train, but the Arex Train is a little more comfortable (especially if you just got off a long flight). The Arex train often sells out, but the All-Stop Train doesn’t sell out, so you can always take the All-Stop train. We had to do this to make it to our flight going home in time as all of the Arex tickets were sold out for the afternoon.
Tickets for both trains can be purchased at Seoul Station or the Incheon Airport. To purchase tickets for the All-Stop Train (or any subway train from Seoul Station), you will need cash to purchase the ticket. I recommend getting some cash or exchanging some money at the airport before heading into the city.
Check out South Korea Tourism website for more specific information. https://english.visitseoul.net/getting-to-seoul
Things that surprised us about Seoul
Safety
We couldn’t believe how safe Seoul felt. We have been to big cities all over the world and Seoul definitely felt the safest by far. Even when out late at night at dark, we didn’t feel unsafe. Using public transportation felt completely safe.
there are no public trash cans
There are many places to buy street food or to-go coffees, but finding a trash can is extremely difficult. You may be carrying around your trash for hours, so keep this in mind if you buy street food or get coffee to-go. We couldn’t believe how clean the streets were despite there being no trash cans anywhere.
Kindness
Everyone was so kind in Korea. It is overall a very respectful culture and I appreciated how kind everyone was. Everyone we encountered was so kind.
At one of the train stations, we stored our luggage and had difficulty getting the door open to our luggage locker. A random stranger came up to us and offered to call the helpline (we couldn’t call because it was a Korean number) and they helped us get our luggage back. He did all of this without being asked. This was just one of the many occurrences of kindness that we encountered on our trip.
how much we loved Korea
We were so excited to visit Korea and loved it even more than we thought we would. It is such a beautiful culture and a wonderful place to explore. We hope to be back again soon!

Things to Know Before Visiting Seoul
Google Maps does not work well
As an avid planner, Google Maps is my best friend when planning a trip. However, in Korea, Google Maps does not work well. You can see some things on a map, but everything does not show up and it does not give walking directions or times when trying to navigate. We used a combination of Naver Maps (which is all in Korean), Google Maps, Apple Maps, and CityMaps2Go to help us navigate.
Korean society still holds many traditional values and respect is very important
As with visiting anywhere, it is so important to respect the culture and customs. I recommend reading up on some cultural differences prior to your visit as to not offend those around. I thought that the culture section of the Lonely Planet Korea book was really helpful for this.
Get a guide book
I am a big fan of Lonely Planet books, but especially in a place where I don’t understand the language or the characters of the language. A guide book can really help to plan your trip and give you a lot more options that you may have considered. I like supplementing guide book planning with blog posts and YouTube videos from other travelers, but guide books are a great place to start. I particularly like Lonely Planet, but Moon and Fodor’s are other great guidebook brands.

Overall this is my not-so-short guide to Seoul, Korea. We absolutely loved our time here and can’t wait to go back!
Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions! Thanks for reading!
-Liz