Seoul

The currency is the South Korean won (₩), with bills of 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 50,000; in 2026 the dollar is worth about ₩1,380 and the euro about ₩1,590, which puts ₩10,000 at close to 7 dollars. To stop converting in your head, memorize counter prices: an americano costs ₩4,500–6,000, a lunch of stew with rice and side dishes ₩9,000–13,000, a grilled-meat dinner ₩25,000–40,000 per person with drinks, convenience-store beer ₩2,500–3,500 and a bottle of soju at a restaurant ₩5,000–6,000. The metro starts at ₩1,550, a guesthouse dorm bed runs ₩30,000–45,000 and a three-star hotel in Myeongdong or Hongdae ₩120,000–200,000 a night. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, including at market stalls, but cards issued abroad often fail at self-service kiosks, top-up machines and some taxis. So carry ₩50,000–100,000 in cash and withdraw from the ATMs marked “Global” in convenience stores. Tipping doesn't exist, not in restaurants, taxis or hotels, and offering one usually causes embarrassment, with the money handed right back. Tourists with a foreign passport are entitled to a VAT refund at participating stores, with an instant discount at the register from about ₩15,000 per purchase or a refund at the airport kiosks.

From the airport to your neighbourhood

At Incheon (ICN), check your terminal and choose transport according to your accommodation’s neighbourhood. The AREX Express runs directly to Seoul Station; the All-Stop also serves stations such as Hongik University, which may suit your destination better. Compare the final leg, transfers with luggage, fare and timetable for your arrival. An airport bus may avoid a transfer, but check the exact stop and the walk to your accommodation; do not assume a hotel-door drop-off. For a taxi, confirm its category and charging method, allowing for traffic and tolls. Gimpo (GMP) has AREX and subway connections, including Lines 5 and 9. Allow for immigration, baggage, waiting and access to the station; the advertised train time excludes those steps. If you arrive before check-in, confirm luggage storage with your accommodation before arranging visits.

Stations, integrated fares and pass coverage

Plan journeys by stations and access points, checking the line’s first and last service for your date. The adult subway base fare with a card is ₩1,550 for up to 10 km, checked in October 2026; distance supplements apply. Integrated fares require the same card to be tapped on entry and exit: normally within 30 minutes for a transfer, or 60 minutes between 9pm and 7am. The highest fare among the services used and the total distance can lead to extra charges; not every transfer is free. Buses include blue trunk routes, green feeders, red metropolitan express routes and yellow circulators; check the route and direction. Climate Card short passes remain available for 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 days on covered services; the Climate Pass for residents has different conditions. Check coverage before buying. For a standard taxi, the daytime base is ₩4,800 for 1.6 km; the night supplement is 20% from 10–11pm and 2–4am, and 40% from 11pm–2am, according to the municipal table checked in October 2026. Other categories and travel outside the area have their own rules. Walking and cycling are choices according to distance, slopes, access and weather, with breaks when changing areas.

Seoul ranks among the world's safest big cities for violent crime and theft. Walking around at three in the morning is routine, phones and laptops stay on café tables while their owners step out, and cameras cover practically every public space. The real risks are traffic, crowding in narrow alleys and the weather. The first is traffic: delivery motorbikes ride on the sidewalk, cars turn right on red and crosswalks don't guarantee right of way. Always look, including behind you. The second is crowd density in narrow alleys: the Itaewon tragedy, on October 29, 2022, killed 159 people in a packed sloping alley on Halloween, and the practical rule is to get out of any crowd where you no longer choose where your own feet go. The third is the weather: summer floods swamp basements and underpasses in heavy rain, and spring fine dust calls for a mask if you have respiratory problems. Scams against foreigners are rare; the most common are inflated bills at bars with touts on the street, in parts of Itaewon and Gangnam, and polite approaches by religious groups near Myeongdong and Hongdae, which start with a compliment on your face and a request for just one minute. Being close to the North Korean border doesn't change daily life: there are occasional civil defense drill sirens, and residents carry on with what they're doing. Phone numbers: 112 for police, 119 for fire and ambulance and 1330 for the tourist hotline, which answers 24 hours a day in several languages and translates on three-way calls.

Giving and receiving with both hands

Money, cards, cups, gifts, and business cards are given and received with both hands, or with the right hand supported by the left forearm. Using just one hand is something you do only among friends the same age.

No one serves themselves

At the table, you fill other people's cups and wait for yours to be filled, and noticing your neighbor's empty cup is part of the dinner. In front of someone older, hold your cup with both hands when receiving a pour and turn your face aside to drink.

Age comes before name

Asking how old you are in the first minutes of conversation isn't nosiness: it decides the speech level of Korean and who serves, who pays, and who sits where. Answering with your birth year settles it quickly.

A wooden step is the sign to take off your shoes

Homes, hanok, restaurants with a raised floor, temples, and some store fitting rooms require taking your shoes off at the step or the wooden platform. Bathroom slippers are for the bathroom and don't leave it; a hole in your sock is a genuine source of embarrassment.

The Korean table has its own rules

The spoon is for rice and soup, the chopsticks for everything else, and the rice bowl stays resting on the table, not in your hand. Never stick chopsticks upright in rice: that's the offering made to the dead. Waiting for the oldest person to start is standard.

Volume and seats on the subway

The seats at the ends of the car are reserved for the elderly, pregnant women, and passengers with disabilities and stay empty even in a packed car: don't sit in them. Phone conversations are held in a low voice, and no one eats inside the car.

Korea restricts mapping data

Trusting Google Maps. It leaves whoever trusts it stranded on a corner waiting for a route that never comes: Korea restricts the export of detailed mapping data, and the app doesn't give walking or driving directions inside the country. Install Naver Map or Kakao Map before you fly, and save addresses in Korean too, because searching by Latin-alphabet name often fails.

Check travel authorisation and arrival declaration

Before travelling, check K-ETA requirements for your passport, age, purpose and entry date; exemptions and temporary rules apply. K-ETA and the e-Arrival Card are separate systems: travellers entering visa-free with a valid K-ETA normally do not need an arrival declaration, but those exempt from K-ETA may need one. Check your eligibility at e-arrivalcard.go.kr; when required, the electronic declaration is free and can be submitted starting three days before arrival, in Korean time.

Check how to pay and top up

Do not assume a foreign bank card works as a transportation card or is accepted by every machine. Designated machines on Lines 1–8 allow foreign cards to buy and top up the short-term Climate Card and buy single tickets, with a service fee; this does not confirm all other top-ups or terminals. Check payment methods for your chosen ticket and keep an alternative according to your spending.

Samgyeopsal only comes in orders of two or more

Walking into a Korean barbecue restaurant alone. Most samgyeopsal places only serve a minimum of two portions, and some turn away tables for one. On your own, go for stew restaurants and single-seat counters, which serve one person without any fuss.

Seollal and Chuseok shut down the city for three days

Booking the trip without checking the dates of Seollal and Chuseok, the two three-day lunar calendar holidays. On those days, family restaurants, markets, and shops pull down their shutters and the roads out of Seoul grind to a halt, so anyone arriving then needs to plan where to eat, even though palaces and museums usually open for free.

안녕하세요 (an-niông-ras-seiô)

Hello: works all day and for anyone

감사합니다 (kam-sa-ham-ni-dá)

Thank you, in the standard polite form

저기요 (djô-gui-iô)

Excuse me: that's how you call the waiter, in a normal voice and without gesturing

이거 주세요 (i-gô djú-se-iô)

Give me this one, please: pointing at the item or the photo on the menu

얼마예요? (ôl-ma-iê-iô)

How much is it?

계산할게요 (kie-san-hal-ke-iô)

I'll pay the bill: said at the register, by the door, where you pay on the way out and not at the table

The basin and the ring of hills

Seoul occupies a 605 km² basin ringed by granite mountains and cut east to west by the Han River, which within the city runs about 1 km wide and is crossed by more than twenty bridges. The ring of hills made the city: Bugaksan (342 m), Inwangsan (338 m), Naksan (125 m), and Namsan (about 270 m) are the four the 1396 wall linked, and Bukhansan, at 836 m at Baegundae peak, closes off the north within a national park that starts about 40 minutes by subway from downtown.

The Han River divides Gangbuk and Gangnam

The river divides two cities with different histories: Gangbuk, to the north, is the six-century core, with irregular streets following the contour lines and small blocks; Gangnam, to the south, was rice paddies until 1970 and was laid out in superblocks with ten-lane avenues, which makes a single block a ten-minute walk.

Vertical density and the climate

Average density is about 15,500 people per km², and the Korean answer to it is vertical: about 60% of households in the city are in apartments, almost always in complexes with numbered towers. The climate is continental monsoon, with a dry winter below freezing and a summer with concentrated rain, and the city adapts with heated floors (ondol) in practically every home and with climate-controlled underground passages linked to the subway stations.

Seo Taiji and Boys and the industry's start, in 1992

The music industry the city exports has an address and a schedule. The lineage begins in 1992, with the debut of Seo Taiji and Boys, and organizes itself from 1995 around companies that train artists for years before launch: SM, YG, JYP, and, since 2005, HYBE, which moved its headquarters to a tower in Yongsan in 2021. The weekly music shows are recorded in studios in Sangam and Yeouido, fan clubs take over cafés rented for idols' birthdays in Hongdae and Seongsu, and physical record stores keep operating because in Korea the album is a collector's object with a photo card inside.

Film and literature in twenty years

In twenty years, Korean film and literature have conquered the world. The wave began in the late 1990s, with liberalization after the dictatorship and the screen quota system, and peaked with Bong Joon-ho's “Parasite,” the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for best picture. In 2021 “Squid Game” became Netflix's most-watched series, and in 2024 Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first person from Korea and the first Asian woman to win it. At the same time, the webtoon was born here: the Naver and Kakao platforms publish vertical-scrolling comics made for the phone, which now feed much of the country's TV series.

Spaces with their own name and long hours

Everyday culture happens in spaces with their own names and long hours. Noraebang are karaoke rooms rented by the hour, PC bang are gaming cafés where you play for ₩1,500 an hour, and jjimjilbang are Korean saunas with steam rooms, clay rooms and heated floors where you can sleep for ₩12,000–18,000. The city has more than 20,000 registered cafés, and they work as office, study hall and living room. In baseball, the LG Twins and the Doosan Bears share Jamsil stadium, and each batter has his own song, sung by the whole stand with inflatable thundersticks. The two most visible religions coexist on the same block: the Buddhist temple Jogyesa, in central Jongno, and large Protestant churches such as Yoido Full Gospel, founded in 1958 and one of the largest congregations in the world.

“Parasite” (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

Palme d'Or in 2019 and four Oscars in 2020, including Best Picture. It works like a floor plan of the city: the half-basement banjiha that floods in summer rain, the house up the hillside, and the staircase between the two.

“Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” (Cho Nam-joo, 2016)

A short novel that sold more than a million copies in Korea and set off a national debate. It describes adult life in Seoul in an almost administrative way: rent, daycare, office, commute, transit, and the social cost of stepping outside that arrangement.

“Wings” (Yi Sang, 1936)

A modernist story written in colonial Gyeongseong, about a man who almost never leaves his room and ends up on the rooftop of the Mitsukoshi department store, today the old Shinsegae building, in Jung-gu. It's the first Korean text to look at the city from above.