Seoul is a city of ten million people with a granite mountain in the middle of it and a six-hundred-year-old palace at the foot of that. The contrast is not a marketing line; it is genuinely how the city is laid out, and it makes for an unusually good walking destination.
Start with the palaces, early
Gyeongbokgung opens at nine and the changing of the guard happens twice a day. Changdeokgung, next door, has the Secret Garden, which requires a timed ticket booked online and is the better of the two. Do one in a morning, not both.
Bukchon Hanok Village sits between them. It is a residential neighbourhood, not an attraction — walk it quietly and before ten, when it is genuinely lovely rather than genuinely crowded.
The mountains are inside the city
Inwangsan and Naksan are short, steep, well-marked climbs from metro stations, reachable in an hour and finished in two. Bukhansan, on the northern edge, is a proper day. Seoul takes hiking seriously and the trails are correspondingly busy on weekends and immaculately maintained.
Seoul is one of very few capital cities where you can be on a summit ridge forty minutes after leaving a subway platform.
Eating at every hour
- Gwangjang Market for bindaetteok and mayak gimbap, before two in the afternoon.
- Korean barbecue as a group activity — it works badly for one and brilliantly for four.
- Late-night pojangmacha tents, which appear after dark and serve until they run out.
- A temple lunch at Jogyesa or on a temple-stay day, which is the quietest meal in the city.
The neighbourhoods
Seongsu for the converted factories, coffee and design studios. Ikseon-dong for renovated hanoks turned into small restaurants. Hongdae for music and students. Itaewon for the international end of the food scene. Seochon, west of the palace, for the quietest version of central Seoul.
Practical
Get a T-money card at any convenience store; it works on the subway, the buses and in the shops. The subway runs until roughly midnight and the buses later. Almost everything takes card. And download a Korean map application before you arrive — the global mapping services are restricted here and give poor walking directions.
Give Seoul five days. It takes two to stop feeling large and three more to start feeling like somewhere you could stay.