Google Maps still won’t walk you anywhere in Korea. How Naver Map and Kakao Map really compare for foreigners, from English search to buses and subway exits.
The first Korean banknote most visitors really look at is the ten thousand. It is the green-blue one with King Sejong on the front, it comes out of every ATM, and it sits in your hand feeling like it ought to be worth something. Ten thousand of anything sounds like a lot. Then you buy … Read more
The all-stop train, the express, the limousine bus and a taxi, compared honestly – with the one payment rule at the bus stands that changed and still trips people up.
Buying KTX tickets for foreigners: Korail’s English app and website, machines and windows at the station, which Seoul station your train leaves from, and whether the KORAIL PASS is worth it.
The palace is the building the Joseon dynasty kept rebuilding. The museum is everything that outlived it. They close on different days, which is the most useful fact nobody puts side by side.
Seoul has a granite national park on the subway. Going outside here isn’t one decision, it’s a dial — twenty minutes beside a stream, an afternoon in a park, or a whole day on a mountain.
Bukchon, Myeongdong, Hongdae and Seongsu each have an hour when they’re worth the trip and an hour when they aren’t. The gap between the two is wider here than anywhere else in Seoul.
Busan’s three coastal names are three kilometres apart, not three choices. Haeundae is the daytime beach, Gwangalli is the night one, Marine City is the skyline you’re looking at from both — and there’s a right order to see them in.
Jjimjilbang for foreigners, in the order it actually happens: shoes, wristband, the naked part, the uniform, the scrub — and the checkout step that traps first-timers.
Korea’s tax refund minimum is now ₩15,000, not ₩30,000. What qualifies, the instant refund limits, and what actually happens at the airport counter.