Seoul takes three days. Korea takes the rest of the week.
Which border tour actually goes down the third tunnel. What a rail bike along the Bukhangang costs. Whether Gyeongju or Busan is the better night away. Reviews of every tour you can book in South Korea.
Thrilling Korean DMZ 3rd Tunnel Tour from Seoul + Red Bridge Rushfrom $35
Seoul City Sightseeing Tour Including Gyeongbokgung Palace, N Seoul Tower, and Namsangol Hanok Villagefrom $80
Suwon Hwaseong Fortress & Korean Folk Village Tourfrom $74
Private Car Charter Tour
The border dayfrom $27
One day north of Seoulfrom $35
The border, a palace morning, the maples at Nami, the old capital.
Four bookings a first week in Korea hangs off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
- 01The border dayBest DMZ Tour Korea from Seoul (Red Suspension Bridge Optional)The third tunnel, the observatory and the red bridge over the Imjin, back in Seoul by mid-afternoon.
02The palace morningGyeongbok Palace, Bukchon Village, and Gwangjang TourGyeongbokgung at the guard change, the Bukchon lanes behind it, then Gwangjang for lunch.
03North of the cityNami Island and Garden of Morning Calm opt RailbikeNami Island maples and the lit garden above Chuncheon, with the rail bike bolted on.
04The old capitalGyeongju Guided Day Trip to Three Kingdoms CapitalGyeongju in a day from Busan: burial mounds, a stone grotto, and Anapji lit on the water.
The DMZ sits forty miles from Gwanghwamun and is still, technically, a war.
A tunnel dug under the line by the North, an observatory with coin binoculars pointed at a village nobody lives in, and a red suspension bridge strung over the Imjin. Every operator clears the same checkpoints. What differs is the pickup, the guide, and whether the third tunnel is actually on the ticket.
Seoul: palaces before the heat, markets long after dark.
Everything in Seoul →
Start at Gyeongbokgung for the ten-o’clock guard change, drop into the Bukchon lanes behind it, and come back at night for Gwangjang, Namsan and a river that runs neon. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Which palace, and whether to rent the hanbok
Five palaces survive inside the city and the largest is the one with the gate ceremony. Turn up in rented hanbok and the ticket window waves you straight through, which is why half the courtyard is dressed for a wedding that is not happening.
Gwangjang, Tongin, and the tents after them
Mung-bean pancakes ground on a stone wheel at Gwangjang, then the pojangmacha tents along the side streets, where the soju lands on the table before you have ordered anything to go with it.
Namsan, the bridges, and the city from above
Up Namsan by cable car for the tower and the whole basin laid out below it, down to the Han for the bridge fountains, and back through a Dongdaemun that never really shuts.
North of Seoul the day comes in four shapes: maples, a lit garden, a rail bike, an alpaca.
Ninety minutes up the Bukhangang the Gapyeong and Chuncheon road strings four completely different days along the same river, and most operators will bolt two of them together. What each one costs, and which of them the weather decides.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Mt. Seorak+Nami Island+Garden of Morning Calm Day Trip from Seoul
Nami IslandMetasequoia avenues, ten minutes across the water.
Garden and villageA hillside garden lit after dark, French rooftops next door.
Rail bikesPedal a closed railway line along the river at Gangchon.
Alpaca WorldA hillside of alpacas that eat out of your hand.
All 51 days out to Nami Island →
Seoul first, then a coast, an island, or a thousand-year-old capital.
Ten million people around five palaces, a port city with beaches on the metro line, a volcanic island an hour off the south coast, and the fortress towns the fast train puts inside an afternoon.
What a day out in South Korea actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good number of the best Korean days come in under the price of dinner in Gangnam.
Palace mornings, market walks, rail bikes and the cheaper runs up to the border.
The full-day standards: Nami and the garden, Seoraksan, Gyeongju from Busan, Jeju by charter taxi.
Private drivers, two-day runs down the peninsula, and the charter days that earn it.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Korea.
Every Korean tour we have reviewed →The tours that carry the most travellers in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Best DMZ Tour Korea from Seoul (Red Suspension Bridge Optional)
Spend about seven and a half hours exploring the DMZ from Seoul with an English or Chinese speaking guide. Visit Imjingak Park, the Bridge of Freedom, the Third Tunnel, and Dora Observatory, then add Gamaksan Red Bridge, Majang Lake, the JSA Museum, or strawberry picking if your chosen option includes it. Bring your passport.
From · $29
Read our review →
2
DMZ Tour: 3rd Tunnel, Option(Suspension Bridge, Boat) from Seoul
from $35
3
DMZ tour south Korea from Seoul (NK experience hall, defector)
from $26
4
DMZ Insider Tour: 3rd Tunnel, NK Defector Meet & Red Bridge
from $50
5
DMZ Tour with Optional Suspension Bridge
from $45
6
Signature DMZ Tour: Exclusive Defector Talk & Suspension Bridge
from $27
7
Thrilling Korean DMZ 3rd Tunnel Tour from Seoul + Red Bridge Rush
from $35
8
DMZ Past and Present: Korean Demilitarized Zone Tour from Seoul
from $37
Korea keeps five palaces inside Seoul and a whole city of tombs at Gyeongju.
Every kind of Korean day →Gyeongbokgung for the gate ceremony, Changdeokgung for the garden behind it, Hwaseong at Suwon for the wall walk, and Gyeongju for what stood on this peninsula a thousand years before any of them.
Gyeongbok Palace, Bukchon Village, and Gwangjang Tour
Read our review →
Gyeongju Guided Day Trip to Three Kingdoms Capital
Read our review →
Best Seoul City Tour (Gyeongbokgung Palace,Insadong,Namsan Tower)
Read our review →Three things that only happen in Korea.
Palaces and street food exist all over East Asia. A live border, a rented dynasty costume that opens gates, and a railway line you pedal do not.
The Demilitarized Zone
Two and a half miles wide, a hundred and fifty long, and mined end to end since 1953. Four tunnels dug under it from the North have been found; the third is open, sloping down at eleven degrees under a hill you walk back out of into a car park. The observatory above it sells coffee and lends you binoculars. Nothing else about the place is ordinary.
- 1Best DMZ Tour Korea from Seoul (Red Suspension Bridge Optional)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 41,422 reviews
- 2DMZ Tour: 3rd Tunnel, Option(Suspension Bridge, Boat) from Seoul★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 21,373 reviews
- 3DMZ tour south Korea from Seoul (NK experience hall, defector)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 20,599 reviews
Hanbok at the palace
Wear hanbok and the four great palaces stop charging you. Rental shops cluster around Gyeongbokgung station with racks by the hour and hairpins included, and the courtyards fill with people in Joseon silk photographing each other against the Bukhansan ridge. It began as a way to get locals through the gates and turned into what the city looks like.
- 1Hanbok Rental with Gyeongbokgung Palace Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 611 reviews
- 2Small Group Seoul Highlight Tour opt. Hanbok & Tea Ceremony★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 318 reviews
- 3Gyeongbok Palace with Gigibebe Hanbok Rental★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 289 reviews
Rail bikes on the old Gyeongchun
When the Gyeongchun railway was rerouted, the old track along the Bukhangang was left where it lay and somebody bolted pedals to a frame. You roll through tunnels lit like a nightclub and out along the water, four to a bike, with a brake nobody uses. The line runs at Gangchon and again in the Jeongseon hills, and nowhere else does quite this.
- 1Nami Island and Garden of Morning Calm opt Railbike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 907 reviews
- 2Nami Island, K-drama Garden & Rail Bike Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 724 reviews
- 3Day Trip to Nami Island with Rail bike and The Garden of Morning Calm★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 459 reviews
Four Korean bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on an army schedule, a ten-day blossom window, a ski season and an October weekend that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Best DMZ Tour Korea from Seoul (Red Suspension Bridge Optional)The border closes on Mondays and on national holidays, passport details go in days ahead, and each bus runs to a fixed headcount.
- 02Mt. Seorak+Nami Island+Garden of Morning Calm Day Trip from SeoulThe island peaks for about three weeks in October and every seat out of Seoul goes on the same handful of weekends.
- 03Jeju East: Cherry Blossom Early Bird Tour with Hotel PickupBlossom holds for roughly ten days and moves north up the peninsula at its own pace. The date is not yours to choose.
- 04Eobi Ice Valley / Elysian Ski Resort / Nami IslandThe resorts make snow from December and shut when it stops holding, usually in early March. Outside that window there is no skiing here.
Korea does not really do a shoulder season.
August is thirty degrees and wet, January is minus ten with a wind straight off the Yellow Sea, and the two good months in between are the ones everyone books. So pick the day to the weather: frozen valleys and ski slopes in winter, blossom and maples in their narrow windows, the river and the night markets when it is too hot to stand in a courtyard.
By place — the capital, the coast, the islands
By kind of day — border, palace, kitchen or slope
Seoul, the border, Gapyeong, Gyeongju, Busan: the run almost everybody does first.
The newest Korean tour reviews.
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Private Tour to Nami Island, Garden, Petite France
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Wine & Korean BBQ, Perfect Pairing Dinner in Sinchon
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Vivaldi Park Winter Ski with Nami Island Day Tour
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Vivaldi Park Winter Ski with Eobi Ice Valley Day Tour
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Suwon Hwaseong & Waujeongsa & Starfield Heritage Tour
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The 62nd Suwon Hwaseong Cultural Festival Day Tour
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Suwon Hwaseong Fortress+Starfield Library+Waujeongsa
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Strawberry Picking & Eobi Ice Valley & Nami Island
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Sokcho beach, market, hot spring and Seorak Cable Car
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