Things to do
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Bukchon Hanok Village
A residential quarter of tiled hanok roofs on the slope between the two main palaces, still lived in and still private. Years of camera traffic ended in a curfew: in the lanes around Bukchon-ro 11-gil, sightseeing is allowed only between ten in the morning and five in the afternoon, with a fine attached. Early mornings on the upper alleys are quiet, and the views run south across the city.
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Changdeokgung
Second of the five Joseon palaces, and for roughly two hundred and seventy years the one the court actually lived in. Its halls follow the contours of the hillside, which is part of why UNESCO listed the site in 1997. The rear garden, Huwon, is entered on a timed guided tour, ticketed separately and capped at a fixed number of places. The whole site closes on Mondays.
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Demilitarized Zone
Four kilometres wide and running coast to coast, the strip dividing the peninsula begins barely an hour north of Seoul. Day tours reach Imjingak, an infiltration tunnel dug under the line and an observatory looking over fields in the North. Passport details go in ahead of the day and a dress code applies. Access to the Panmunjom truce village has been suspended since 2023.
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Dongdaemun Design Plaza
Zaha Hadid's curved aluminium shell, opened in 2014, has no straight line in it and no obvious front door. Inside are exhibition halls, design shops and a fashion week calendar. Outside, the excavation that preceded it turned up a stretch of the Joseon city wall and a floodgate, left open as a park beside the building. The outdoor decks stay lit and walkable through the night.
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Gwangjang Market
Opened in 1905 as Korea's first permanent market, trading every day when other markets still came and went. The ground floor is a food hall now: mung bean pancakes ground and fried at the stall, seaweed rice rolls dipped in mustard, raw beef with pear. Upstairs sells fabric and hanbok by the hundred metres. Lunchtime is shoulder to shoulder, and some stalls shut on Sundays.
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Gyeongbokgung
Joseon's main palace, founded in 1395, burned during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s and was rebuilt by a regent almost three centuries later, then stripped of most of its halls under colonial rule. Restoration has run in phases since the 1990s. The throne hall and the pavilion on the lotus pond are the set pieces. Guards change at the front gate twice a day, and the grounds close on Tuesdays.
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Hongdae
The streets around Hongik University, an art school, carry the student nightlife of the city: indie music venues, record shops, cheap grills and a pedestrian strip where buskers set up from early evening and draw standing crowds until late. Bars run past dawn on Fridays and Saturdays. Daytime is thinner, though the design studios and second-hand shops on the quieter blocks reward a wander.
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Insadong
Antique dealers, brush and hanji paper shops, tea rooms and small galleries line one pedestrianised street and the alleys running off it, on ground that was a government quarter under the Joseon court. Ssamziegil, a shopping block built as a single climbing spiral, anchors the middle. The main road shuts to traffic at weekends. The back lanes hold the older tea houses and stay quieter at any hour.
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Jogyesa
Head temple of the Jogye Order and the working centre of Korean Buddhism, on a downtown block minutes from Insadong. Its main hall dates from 1938 and holds three Buddhas scaled to the full height of the room. Two trees of roughly five centuries stand in the courtyard, a white pine under state protection and a Chinese scholar tree. Paper lanterns fill the yard for the Buddha's birthday in spring.
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Lotte World Tower
At 555 metres over Jamsil, the tapering glass tower is Korea's tallest building, topped out in 2017 after a long argument about the flight path of a nearby airbase. Its Seoul Sky observatory takes the upper floors and hangs a glass-floored ledge over the drop. Winter air reads clearer than summer haze. Entry is timed, and weekday mornings move fastest through the queue.
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Myeongdong
Cosmetics counters, a hundred skincare storefronts and a nightly line of food carts fill a few blocks between Euljiro and Namsan. Trading is loudest after dark, when the carts set up along the main crossings and the shops stay open late. Myeongdong Cathedral, Gothic brick finished in 1898, stands above it all and sheltered the democracy protests of the 1980s.
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N Seoul Tower
Namsan rises straight out of the centre, and the broadcast tower on its summit has carried an observation deck since 1980. Together they put the viewing floors close to 480 metres above sea level, high enough to read the whole basin and the bends of the river. A cable car climbs from Myeongdong, and a wooded trail takes about forty minutes on foot. Padlocks cover the terrace railings.
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National Museum of Korea
Korea's national collection moved to this long low building in Yongsan in 2005, and the permanent galleries carry no admission charge. The holdings run from Silla gold crowns to a ten storey marble pagoda standing inside the entrance hall. Two gilt bronze pensive bodhisattvas have a darkened room of their own. Half a day is realistic, and the grounds and reflecting pond take longer.