A city of striking contrasts — ancient palaces surrounded by glass towers, Buddhist temples wedged between apartment blocks, and street food markets under motorway flyovers. Everywhere you look, the faces of K-pop idols look down at you from posters, adverts and signs. It's a city that blends eastern and western architecture into something reminiscent of Cyberpunk, but with more joy.
Sights & Culture
Gyeongbokgung Palace
The grandest of Seoul's five Joseon-era palaces. We were deeply fortunate, arriving just in time for the changing of the guard (10am and 2pm — well worth timing your visit for). You enter through Gwanghwamun, the palace's grand main gate, where the guards perform the ceremony in traditional dress, carrying banners and weapons. A second gate, Heungnyemun, leads into the inner courtyard, and beyond that stands Geunjeongjeon, the throne hall itself — its double-tiered roof and painted throne room the single grandest space in the whole complex.
The buildings are impressive but are a reconstruction — the originals were destroyed by the Japanese. If you rent a local hanbok you get free entry, which is very popular — noticeably more women than men wearing it, ranging from gorgeous traditional gowns to something more like K-pop/"Demon Hunters"-style cosplay.
Two other main Joseon palaces remain in Seoul besides this one, both close on the map but easier to reach via taxi than public transport.
~KRW 3,000 entry.
N Seoul Tower
The tallest point in Seoul, though it's a bit of a cheat, as it's built on top of a hill, so it's not nearly as imposing a building as 101 Taipei, for example. There are a couple of expensive high-end restaurants at the top, and booking there will get you free access to the top of the tower. Otherwise there's a ticketed lift — queues can be very long, but when we were there, there was no one ahead of us. We bought the N Burger deal (entry + a burger meal), incorrectly thinking the burger place was at the top of the tower. It was not.
The view is great — there are two floors for the general public, fully glassed all the way around, with a cafe, souvenir shop, and a few other bits in the centre.
To get there, you can take the funicular up to the cable car station, then the cable car up to the tower, and finally the tower's own lift to the viewpoint at the top. It's a fun combination of three different rides for one hill.
You can also walk up the hill — there's a nice pathway with steps, though they can be slippery in the rain.
It's a good option if you want to see the city from up high, though it's quite expensive for what it is.
Myeongdong
The main shopping and street food district. Intense on weekends and evenings; excellent for Korean skincare and cosmetics if you want them. The street is fun and busy, but the shop repetition is intense — the same handful of chains over and over (Converse, Tony Moly, Art Box, Hbaf, ABC Mart) rather than a really diverse selection. The shops also go upwards, though — not shopping malls, but each building may have stores across multiple floors.
Myeongdong Cathedral
It's fine, and worth a look if you're in the area, but probably not worth the detour unless you're Catholic.
Jaemilo Fun Road ("Fun St")
A small street with art and sculpture leaning into nerd themes (a geek-themed street) is a nice idea but doesn't have enough going on to justify seeking it out for a visit.
Bongeunsa Temple
Didn't explore in depth — it's a largish temple complex in Gangnam, opposite the Coex Exhibition Centre; from the outside, it felt more like a garden centre than a temple.
Namdaemun-ro Water Fountain Park
Just off a main junction, this huge water fountain dominates the intersection.
Gangnam Style Sculpture
Outside the Coex mall, the golden hands in Psy's iconic pose attract tourists and locals, many filming themselves dancing to "Oppa Gangnam Style" in front of the statue.
Museums & Galleries
National Museum of Korea
Based in Yongsan district, with its own dedicated metro exit, it is one of the largest museums in Asia and the 4th most-visited museum in the world, behind the Louvre, the National Museum of China, and the Vatican Museums. The permanent exhibition covers Korean history and art from prehistoric times to the modern era; it is absolutely huge, spread across 3 floors, with Ancient Greece & Rome at the top, then the Japan/samurai period, then China, India, and Islam, each with a dedicated space. Also pottery, of course, and calligraphy/paintings/donated collections on floor 2. The whole thing is impeccably curated and displayed.
For the temporary exhibits, "Amazing Thailand" was very well curated. The "Korean Table" paid exhibit had a beautiful layout, though it's a history-of-food angle that may land harder with locals than with a tourist of limited familiarity with Korean eating patterns.
Free entry (permanent collection); the paid ticket for temporary exhibits is ~KRW 10,000 per person and covers both special exhibitions running at the time.
National Folk Museum of Korea
Inside the Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds (though accessible without paying entry to the palace). It's focused on practical cultural history, in a way "folk museum" perhaps misrepresents — it's good at explaining how Koreans actually lived at various periods in history. Permanent collection 1 covers the connection to K-culture and Korean history, including pottery, ending on a surprisingly K-pop-themed note. Permanent collection 2 covers a year in the life of a Korean, focused around the seasons and how that changed their behaviour. Permanent collection 3 covers Korean life passages. There's also a Hangeul (alphabet) special exhibit, brought in from the Hangeul Museum while it's under renovation — a cool concept but pretty incomprehensible if you can't already read Korean.
Finally, outside, there's a "Street of Memories" exhibit — a recreated 1970s/80s Korean high street, complete with a TV repair shop and a tailor's. It's fine, but a bit of a non-event: shopfronts to look at rather than anywhere you can actually go in.
Free entry.
War Memorial of Korea
The museum offers a comprehensive account of the Korean War and, more broadly, Korea's military history for centuries. It's a large and genuinely great museum — possibly the best museum I've been to on this four-country tour. We easily spent 3.5 hours here exploring and reading, and likely underserved the bottom floor. Outside, there are pillars — tributes to the participating UN nations with their killed/wounded statistics. US participation is massively higher than everyone else combined, of course.
Inside, on the ground floor, there is a welcome video with a voiceover that is bizarrely over-enthusiastic (almost dystopian sci-fi in tone). That follows into a really solid overview of the Korean War with lots of multimedia (e.g. a section on communist forces using bugles/flutes as signals and distractions due to "poor weaponry"). There is a standout temporary exhibit on faces-of-war photography, oddly sponsored by LIG, a Korean defence contractor, with two photographers who've taken the time to track down veterans in various nations and take beautiful portraits of them. The second floor looks at the Vietnam War with lots of models showing weaponry, battlefields, and fortifications. It showcases South Korea's prominent role in various later UN interventions; this floor tips into propaganda territory with several ROK-armed-forces promotional films, plus a North Korea incidents room and a small section on women in the armed forces (aiming for a disappointing 8.8% by some vague target date). In the basement we see Korea's broader history and artefacts — a very detailed run-through, though possibly it would be better covered at the National Museum.
Free entry.
Parks & Gardens
Namsan (N Seoul Tower)
A hill park in the city centre. If you're feeling energetic, you can climb the hill all the way to the N Seoul Tower and save yourself KRW 15,000 on the cable car ticket.
Restaurants & Bars
Furoa
A nice restaurant, but an odd combo on the brunch plate — a slice of toast, two spreads, one egg, two bits of cheese, and a slice of ham. Also required ordering at least two drinks; two plates plus one drink apparently wasn't enough.
Myeongdong Night Market
Busy, and noticeably more Western tourists than the equivalent markets in Taipei. Found a table-order pizza place nearby where the ordering tablet plays non-stop ads whenever you're not actively using it.
Cafe Dictionary Express
Cute hole-in-the-wall cafe, right by where the bus collects you for the DMZ tour. Perfect.
Kkanbu Chicken
Above a convenience store, this large restaurant does pizza and fried chicken. It's not haute cuisine, but it has generous portions, good service, and good value.
우형제 WOO BROS
Upmarket Korean BBQ. We had the hanwoo — Korea's answer to wagyu — and it was delicious, as well as some pork belly and a few other cuts. A chef comes to your table to cook the BBQ for you on the stove in the middle of it. It's an odd and expensive experience, but something you have to do in Seoul.
The Place
Billed as an Italian Urban Bistro in the middle of the Coex mall, it's exactly what you expect from a shopping-mall food-court restaurant. Solid but not exceptional.
Shopping
Myeongdong
Korean cosmetics and skincare — Innisfree, Etude House, and Olive Young all have flagship stores here, as well as everything else you might want. Good street food between shops.
Gangnam
The home of upscale boutiques and department stores (Galleria, Lotte). It's the area the song is about, so it's worth visiting just for that, and to see the K-pop statues and the Gangnam Style statue. The area feels notably more Western/US than the rest of Seoul, with things like Shake Shack, Dunkin, Subway, and Burger King all present. K-Star Road, lined with K-pop idol statues, is very premium too, with massive stores for Chanel, Tiffany, etc. all the way along.
Coex Mall
A monstrously large underground mall in Gangnam. Offering a good mix of stores and categories of stores, it's an easy place to spend time. The Starfield Library is genuinely impressive, though it's unclear how you'd actually browse/borrow anything, as the shelves stretch to the glass ceilings. The building also has an aquarium and a cinema, plus the bronze "Gangnam Style" hands statue outside and the exhibition centre.
Sports & Activities
Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) Tour
About an hour from Seoul. A genuinely sobering and historically significant visit. Dozens of tour operators run day trips; the USO tour is popular. Book in advance. See DMZ.