Julian Knodt

A Guide to Visiting Korea

This is a brief guide, primarily about housing, transit and food in Korea.

It will proceed sequentially, starting from where to book hotels, arrival, finding food, and then transit. I hope it can be of some help for your visit.

This guide assumes you’re visiting Seoul, and briefly describes Pohang. If you’re going to Busan or Jeju I don’t have any advice, but some things here may also apply.

TL;DR

This information is from Nov. 2025, and Koreans move fast. Some of it may become outdated.

Table of Contents

Hotel Booking

Where you book a hotel in Seoul is less important than some places, as different regions of Seoul are connected by subway. Most foreigners will end up reserving around Myeong-Dong:

Most Koreans do not suggest going to this area though, since many restaurants are quite touristy. At the same time, it’s easier to reserve foreign hotels in this area, and it is fairly well connected. The prices for hotels will be much higher.

The times I traveled to Seoul, I stayed directly adjacent to Seoul Station with AirBnb, but a number of places are cross-listed in multiple places:

If you have mobility issues, this region is more hilly. The prices are much cheaper, there may be some housing which has shared bathrooms, and you likely will be staying in tighter quarters than you are used to. Do not book two people for one room.

When organizing trips with Koreans, often they book on a local app (NOL) which has extremely low prices, and a large variety of places. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t seem to have a translation, and it may only accept Korean bank cards. If you’ve got a friend in Korea they may be able to book for you.

Transit

Getting from Incheon Airport to Seoul

Once you’ve landed in Incheon, assuming you don’t have an entourage waiting for you, you’ve got to navigate from Incheon to Seoul. The easiest way is to take the airport express subway, which goes directly to Seoul Station. You can purchase tickets, I believe, near the escalator to the platform.

There are two lines you can take, the airport express goes to Seoul Station with no stops but is ~13,000 won and 40/50 minutes depending on terminal, whereas the train with intermediate stops is about ~5000 won and 59/66 minutes.

Once you’re in Seoul, how do you navigate the city? Seoul is quite vast, and depending on where you are you can either take a taxi or the subway. Taxis are cheap, and are able to take foreign credit cards. Most taxi drivers won’t speak english, but if you show them on a map it should be fine. This is the most straightforward.

For taking the subway, you used need a T-money card (or a Korean debit/credit card but if you’re reading this you won’t have one lol). There is a T-money app, or it may be possible to use Apple Wallet. There is a reddit post which may be more informative, I don’t know since I used a Korean debit card.

Note that preparing cash to load a physical T-money card is probably good, since a friend visiting found that it’s not possible to use a foreign credit card because it converts credit into something that can be used as cash.

Update as of March 17th 2026: You should be able to purchase subway tickets with foreign credit cards, just in time for a BTS comeback concert (Source). Another development courtesy of K-pop.

Food

This section is where I’m putting most of my focus. There are a number of Korean foods which most people are just unaware of, so first there’s a brief overview of different foods, then recommended methods for how to search for them.

High-Level

Korean food in Korea is quite different from Korean food you eat elsewhere. Many local restaurants are highly specialized, and will serve only a few dishes. Some of the dishes have ingredients which you also won’t find abroad, like spicy chicken feet (dalkbal 닭발), BBQ pork trotters (jokbal 족발), spicy intenstines (gopchang 곱창), or more exotic ones such as agu-jjim (아구찜), or Al-Jjim. In some regions such as Jeju or Busan, there is a heavier emphasis on seafood than meat. Seafood is also highly seasonal, for example red crab (hong-ge 홍게) and yellowtail (bangeo 방어) are more fresh in the winter time. Koreans also have a lesser known raw fish kind known as hoe (회 pronounced Hwae), which is quite distinctive in texture, fish choice, and preparation method than sashimi. The ahjumma will often kill and cut up the fish in front of you, but the cutting style is more akin to noodles than slices like sashimi.

In Seoul, you can find most Korean foods, but Korea also has a number of regional specialties, as Pohang is known for gwamegi (과메기) mul-hoe (물회, pronounced mull-hwae), and Busan is known for Dwaeji-Gukbap (돼지국밥). There are even many variations of common foods, such as cold noodles (Naengmyeon 냉면), which has a Hamhung version (richer pork flavor), a Pyeongyang version, and even a Jinju naengmyeon. Each city is proud of its own variant of the same food.

A lot of foods are also “time-dependent”. For example, Koreans prefer to eat knife-cut noodles (칼국수 kalguksu) and hand-pulled dough (수제비 sujebi) in clam broth (조개국 choge-guk) when it’s rainy, or ginseng chicken soup (삼계탕 samgyetang (note the gye is pronounced gei, not gyeh)) or porridge (죽 juk, also comes w/ chicken and abalone) when they are sick. Other dishes, such as soy milk noodle soup (콩국수 kong-guk-su) are only available in the winter. Koreans also sometimes stack spicy in the summer to fight off the heat. For a visitor, of course you can choose whatever you want to eat, but if you see queues at specific places it may in large be because of timing.

There is also a large number of Korean foods which are similar to those from Japan for historical reasons. For example, there is odeng (Jpn = oden), udong (Jpn = Udon), soba (Jpn = soba), and sushi (Korean = cho-bap 초밥). These are distinct from the Japanese versions, and I would say some of the best soba I’ve had has been in Korea, sorry for sacrilege. Note that there is also ramen (라멘) and ramyeon (라면), but the difference is not Japanese versus Korean, but ramyeon is instant whereas ramen is fresh made.

Furthermore, there is also “Korean-Chinese” food (Chung-kuk-Jib 중국집 lit. China House). If you see a restaurant labeled as “real Chinese” in Korea, more likely than not it’s a Korean-Chinese fusion. At these restaurants, you can get dishes such as fried rice (bokkeum-bap 볶음밥), noodles with black bean sauce (Jajang-myeon 자장면), spicy seafood soup (Jjampong 짬뽕), and sweet and sour pork (Tang-su-yuk 탕수육). For some examples, see either here or here.

There’s also “pho” in Korea, known as ssal-guksu (쌀국수 lit. rice noodle soup). Instead of the usual Vietnamese toppings like Thai basil, lime, or Cilantro, it’s usually seasoned with chili and lemons, and may have intestines instead of tripe or or meatballs. These are not super common, and I think they don’t hit the same spot as pho for me, but they’re not bad to try. These kind of restaurants also made me realize that many Koreans have the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap.

There are also more traditional Korean meals such as Han-Jeong-sik (Hanja: 韓定食), where they serve 10, 20 or more small dishes, or school meals (Hanja: 學校食堂, pro. hak-kyo-sik-dang, abbr. hak-sik) where you can get a lot of… interesting veggies (나물 namul) There’s also bun-sik (분식 lit flour meal) where you can get tteokbeokki but I don’t think I ever specifically went for that.

Finally, there are some classic well-known Korean such as barbeque, and fried chicken. Barbeque can either be (소)고기구이 ((so) gogi gu-i) which is usually pork, Hanwoo 한우 Korean beef (similar in spirit to Wagyu), or other things like grilled eel (장어구이 Jang-o gu-i). Note, if you see ggom-jango (꼼장어), that ain’t no eel that’s a hagfish. This is different from the distinction between Japanese anago (穴子/アナゴsaltwater eel) and unagi (ウナギ freshwater eel). There’s also fried chicken, known in Korea as just “chicken” 치킨. It seems quite popular to just order chicken from whichever store has the best sale on Coupang at any given moment, but there are local places you can get it as well.

Note: For gogi restaurants, they will give you perilla leaves, or lettuce, gochujang and raw garlic. This is known as ssam (쌈 lit. wrap), where you wrap all the things you want in the leaf and stuff it all in at once. It elevates the experience, at the cost of having to stuff a massive thing in your mouth.

Finding Restaurants

Of course, just because you know what exists doesn’t mean you can easily find a restaurant. While the most common method for finding restaurants in the US or Japan is using Google Maps, or Yelp, Korea uses Naver maps. When searching on Naver maps, because of the density of restaurants in Korea, it’s a good idea to know what dish you want to eat. Generally, searching also works better in Korean, so being able to either copy and paste the dish name, or directly typing in Korean can help you find restaurants.

If you still find yourself with analysis paralysis, there is also a Korean guide to good restaurants called Blue Ribbon. When I talked with some Koreans, often they did not use this, but the restaurants they chose as good often directly overlapped with ones marked by this list.

Cafes

Coffee culture is big in Korea. The basic black coffee in Korea is Americano, but I don’t think they add extra water like they do in other places. Koreans drink so much Americano, that they call iced americano, Ah-Ah (아아). They may have a large variety of drinks including espresso, flat whites, einspanners, and other things. If you’re not a fan of coffee, they usually also have a milk tea, yuja-cha (유자차), or omija-cha (오미자차). I found that the experience at a cafe often is both about the vibes and the quality of drinks, and often both are highly quality. You should be able to find ones with immaculate vibes in almost every neighborhood.

Teas:

Within Korea, Jeju is also well-known for matcha, but since I haven’t been I can’t confirm if it’s better there. At restaurants, they also usually serve cold water, but sometimes they will serve cold barley tea.

Interesting Districts in Seoul

Each district has a very distinct feel, including the types of people who are walking around. Some places are near universities (West of Seoul Station), Foreign (slightly North-East of Seoul Station), business people (directly north of the Hangang), or lively (Gangnam, which translates to river’s south). I’ve listed some of the more interesting places, as well as touristy places, although they’re covered by most other guides.

More Touristy:

Note: “Dong” can refer to both a region (as in Mullae-Dong) and East (as in Dongdaemun)

Specific Restaurants in Seoul

I don’t want to suggest specific restaurants, because you can probably close your eyes and walk down the street and end up in a good one, but I’ll suggest a few I’ve been to which I distinctly remember. These restaurants are personal to me because I ate there with friends, and the food quality is good.

Religion

If you’re familiar with Japan, you might expect temples all over. Korea is quite different, as it’s modernized relatively recently. The history of Korea also pushed many Buddhist temples further away from community centers. There are many more churches (교회 kyohui) all over, but I never went into one. A lot of Koreans I met did attend church on Sundays, at varying levels of liberal/conservative churches. Some also offer a prayer before meals.

If you are interested in visiting Buddhist temples, the most famous one in Korea is in Gyeong-ju, Bul-Guk-sa. I also visited Shin-Heung-Sa in Sokcho, and Oe-o-sa in Pohang, but they were both buried deep in the mountains.

Pohang

While most people who see this guide are interested in Seoul, I want to write a bit about Pohang, since that’s where I spent most of my time. When I think about Korea, I think about Pohang, with the people I know, and the Hyeong-San Gang.

This is a subset of restaurants I visited in Pohang, there’s so many restaurants there so I feel like I could be there and try so many more. This

Closing Note

This guide is in flux, and may be updated based on interest. If there’s anything you’d like to hear about, please feel free to contact me.

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