The Only Things To Do in Korea List I Would Give My Best Friend

These are the 25 things to do in Korea I would hand to anyone who asks, pulled from two winter trips and more than forty posts on this blog.

The first trip was a backpacking loop with Vi and Yin. Seoul, Busan and Jeju, hostels with towels the size of a bookmark. The second was Christmas and New Year with Fafa, at minus fifteen degrees, which turned into my 30 Days of Korea series. Between them, I ate a lot, froze a lot and learned a little.

So here is everything, in one place. Some of it is touristy. We are tourists. Let us be at peace with that.

25 Things To Do in Korea: My Repeat Visitor Guide

I have grouped the list into four parts: eating, culture, slowing down, and getting out of Seoul. Each one links to the full story if you want the details (and the photos).

Things To Do in Korea If You Travel Stomach First

Everything in Korea is easier on a full stomach. Start here.

1. Eat your way through Gwangjang Market

Gwangjang Market is my favourite market in Korea, and I went twice. My first ever kalguksu came from Gohyang Kalguksu, the stall from Netflix’s Street Food Asia. Then bindaetteok with makgeolli, the mung bean pancake that tricked me into thinking I was eating meat. Go between 5pm and 9pm, when the alleys are loudest.

2. Swap your cash for brass coins at Tongin Market

Tongin Market in Seochon runs the brass coin lunch box. You buy ₩500 coins, take an empty tray, then fill it stall by stall. Go at the start of lunch, because the coin exchange shuts when the food runs out (there is a reason my post is titled “sans brass coins”). Whatever you do, order the oil tteokbokki.

3. Hunt for hotteok at Mangwon Market

Mangwon Market sits behind Mangwon Station, exit 2, and is easy to walk straight past. Inside: chilli pastes by spice level, jokbal, blood sausage, and banchan stalls (yes, not all banchan is homemade, I was shocked too). The best hotteok is at the last stall near the exit. You are welcome.

4. Pick your dinner out of a tank at Noryangjin

Noryangjin Fish Market runs around the clock. Choose your seafood downstairs, pay the vendor, then carry it upstairs to be turned into sashimi. The restaurant charges its own table fee, so the bill comes in two parts. Ask for maeuntang, the spicy stew made from the bones. That part is the reward.

5. Grill Korean BBQ and wrap it properly

Samgyeopsal or galbi, a grill in the middle, banchan that keeps coming. Wrap each piece in lettuce with garlic, ssamjang and a bit of kimchi, then eat it in one bite. That is the rule. Do not wear anything you love.

6. Do a chicken crawl, then a ramyun nightcap

Korean chicken is so much more than fried, though in Hongdae we had fried chicken three times and dakbal twice, so I am not one to talk. Finish with a bowl of ramyun in Seoul’s old men district, two eggs half floating, half sinking.

7. Drink in an alley

Find a lane of tiny bars and plastic tents, squeeze onto a stool, order soju and something fried. Then play the drinking games: guess the number inside the soju cap, or take turns pouring into a beer glass without sinking the floating soju cup. Silly? Very. A highlight? Also yes. Not drinking? Korea has plenty of non alcoholic drinks worth the trip, banana milk included.

8. Take a cooking class that starts at the market

My Korean cooking class began at Mangwon Market, where our teacher Junghee made us buy the ingredients ourselves. Then five flights of stairs to her apartment, and dakgalbi, bibimbap and pajeon. My vegetables were cut unevenly. I had the best time anyway, and it got me hooked on cooking classes everywhere I travel.

9. Find home in a bowl of bakso

For my fellow homesick Indonesians: Bakso Bejo serves authentic, affordable Indonesian food in Seoul. Sometimes the best thing to do in a new country is eat something that tastes like your old one.

Cultural Things To Do in Korea

Take the palace photo, by all means. Then go a bit deeper.

10. Wear a hanbok into a palace

Turn up in a full hanbok and you walk into Seoul’s palaces for free. The rental shops sit right outside the gates and will do your hair too. You will take approximately 400 photos. Gyeongbokgung closes on Tuesdays, and the changing of the guard runs around 10am and 2pm, so time your grand entrance.

11. Get lost in Insadong

Insadong is the spot in Seoul I kept going back to. Galleries, calligraphy shops, teahouses, and Ssamzigil, the mall that spirals you up to the roof instead of using stairs like a normal building. At the top is the Poop Cafe, home of the best sweet potato latte of my life. Check it is open before you build an afternoon around it.

12. Have a dojang name stamp carved

I walked past the stamp shops twice thinking “what would I even do with it?” before dragging Fafa back on day three. Pick the material and shape, choose the name and ink colour, and come back in about an hour. Mine says Kulture Kween in red, cost ₩40,000 (tourist price, worth it) and still lives on my desk.

13. Learn the story of kimchi at Kimchikan

Kimchikan, the kimchi museum, is tucked into Insadong. I shared it with twenty kindergarten kids. Confession: I do not like traditional cabbage kimchi. I still came out with a new respect for kimjang, the communal kimchi making season from late November to early December, which UNESCO lists as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

14. Watch Nanta

Four cooks, one wedding banquet due at six, a terrifying number of knives and a drum kit made of kitchen equipment. No dialogue, so no language barrier. There are theatres in Myeongdong and Hongdae with different schedules. There is audience participation, so choose your seat accordingly.

15. Sleep on a heated floor in a hanok

For our anniversary we stayed in a hanok in Bukchon. The taxi dropped us on the main road, so a sick Fafa dragged both suitcases uphill while I hobbled behind after falling on the ice twice. Worth it. Ondol floor, instant noodles, Bukchon out the window. Can’t stay? Baek In-je’s House in Bukchon is free to visit.

16. Get inked by a Korean tattoo artist

On New Year’s Eve morning, Fafa and I got semi matching tiger tattoos from 85tattooer, in the Year of the Tiger. I booked Hongil over Instagram a couple of weeks before we flew, and he happily softened the tiger for me. Research early, because the artists you want are often booked out.

Slow Things To Do in Korea When Seoul Gets Loud

Seoul runs fast. These are the places I went to catch my breath.

17. Sit in a traditional teahouse

One winter morning I wandered into Namusae, a hanok teahouse down an Insadong alley. It was empty, so I swapped my boots for slippers, sat by the courtyard and meditated while the tea was made. It came with yakgwa and gotgamssam, and I still think about that cup. For the opposite energy, try Ppong Da Bang, the most hectic teahouse in Seoul.

18. Make a wish at Bongeunsa Temple

Going to a temple at New Year is my family’s tradition, so Fafa took me to Bongeunsa on New Year’s Day. We tossed coins to the Buddha floating on the frozen pond, then bought a zodiac candle for ₩5,000, wrote our wishes on it and lit it with the crowd. Pair it with Starfield Library next door at COEX.

19. Try temple food (just maybe not where I did)

Korean temple cuisine skips the five pungent ingredients, garlic and onion among them. I wanted it after loving shojin ryori in Koyasan, so we booked a set lunch at Sanchon in Insadong. Honestly? Most of it was cold, the service was worse, and we skipped dessert. Try it anyway, ideally at a temple food cooking class.

20. Get naked and zen at a jjimjilbang

On our first night in Busan, Vi talked me into Spa Land. I nearly choked at all the nakedness. Then came nine hot tubs, thirteen themed rooms, a heated lounge and baked eggs (it is tradition, according to a K drama). Back then it cost ₩12,000 for four hours. Best ten bucks I ever spent.

21. Post a letter to your future self

Korea has slow post boxes that hold your postcard and deliver it months later. Write to future you about what you ate and what you were worrying about that turned out not to matter. Then forget it, until one ordinary day it lands in your letterbox. Stamp it with your new dojang for bonus points.

Things To Do in Korea Beyond Seoul

Korea is not for everyone, and Seoul is not all of Korea. Leave the city at least once.

22. Take the train to Busan

We took the train to Busan with one plan only: Gamcheon Culture Village, the hillside of painted houses they call the Santorini of Asia. Its most famous statue is the Little Prince (never a fan of the book, still took the photo). Add the seaside Haedong Yonggungsa Temple and Jagalchi Fish Market, and end the night at the jjimjilbang.

23. Go slow on Jeju

We flew from Busan to Jeju because of Boys Over Flowers, then remembered there are no flower fields in winter. It did not matter. Climb Seongsan Ilchulbong, then catch the haenyeo, the women divers, in the early afternoon. Eat black pork (red meat, black skinned pig, I was confused too) on its dedicated street. We liked it so much we stayed an extra night just to eat it again.

24. Day trip to Nami Island

Nami Island calls itself the Republic of Naminara and issues you a visa at the gate. Take the ITX to Gapyeong, about an hour from Seoul, then a short ferry. I went in winter, and the only word I have is magical. Now I want to see it in autumn.

25. Take the slow train on purpose

The KTX gets you anywhere fast. The local lines are where the trip happens: rice fields, school kids, snack trolleys. The old Mugunghwa trains are being retired route by route, so ride one while you can. For scenery, look up the V Train through the Baekdudaegan canyon or the Sea Train on the east coast, and book through Korail well ahead.

Before You Go

A few things I wish someone had told me before my first trip:

• Download Naver Map or KakaoMap. Google Maps barely works in Korea.
• Buy a T-money card at any convenience store. Subway, bus and most taxis, sorted.
• Carry cash. Korea is card-friendly right up until you meet a market stall.
• Check closing days the night before. Palaces and markets each close one day a week, rarely the same one.
• Stay in Hongdae. We liked Hongdae more than Myeongdong: more food without the long queues, buses everywhere, and endless photobooths.
• Dress for winter like you mean it. Hot packs, sensible shoes, and a Uniqlo run on day one.
• Save 1330. The Korea Travel Hotline is free, around the clock, and answered by real humans in English.

Want more? I put all my practical advice into How to Korea: 10 Korea Travel Tips, and everything that confused me into Korean Culture Shock: 30 Things That Surprised Me and South Korea in Vignettes.

These 25 things to do in Korea are just the ones I would do again tomorrow, which is a different list and a better one.

Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.