Asia · Seoul and the DMZ
How many days Seoul needs, when to go, and whether a day at the DMZ is worth it – from a long weekend that was hot, fast and better than it had any right to be.
Tested by Paulius Pikelis · 140 countries
Seoul is the rare capital that rewards a weekend more than a week. Five royal palaces and whole neighbourhoods of tiled-roof hanok houses sit inside a mega-city of glass and neon, close enough together to walk between, and a metro that is fast, clean and legible makes the rest of the city feel small. You arrive expecting scale and find density instead – the good things are all within reach of each other.
What you do is walk the old city – the palaces, ideally in a rented hanbok, which gets you in free and changes how the place feels; the hanok villages on the hill; the teahouses of Insadong – and then let the evening city take over: Myeongdong under its thousand signs, a barbecue dinner where the staff show you what to do, the view from Namsan. Then you leave the city for a day. North, the DMZ is the day trip the whole peninsula is arranged around, and the closest anyone gets to looking into North Korea. In July, and only in July, the mud festival on the west coast is a second day out that is stupid in the best possible way.
Two honest caveats. We had four days in late July, a long weekend from Hong Kong booked around that festival, and July in Seoul is a sauna: monsoon first, then a wet heat that does not break at night. And four days reached Seoul, the border and the coast, not the country – Busan, Gyeongju and Jeju are all a fast train or a short flight away and all untested by us, so this page does not pretend to know them. A long weekend does not do justice to South Korea. It does do justice to Seoul.
Korea has four real seasons and two of them are the answer. The other two are the monsoon and the deep freeze, and the trip changes shape in both.
April to May
Spring, and the season most people mean when they say Korea: cherry blossom in early April, mild days, dry skies. It is also the busiest window at the palaces, and prices know it.
Late June to August
The monsoon first – roughly late June to the second half of July, when a single month can bring Seoul most of a year of London's rain – and then a wet heat that does not break at night. We came at the end of July and it was a sauna from the airport onward. Only one thing justifies it: the mud festival on the west coast, which runs for a couple of weeks from late July and cannot be moved.
Late September to early November
The other peak, and the better one. Clear air, cool mornings, the palaces and the mountains behind them turning red and gold through October. If you can pick, pick this.
December to February
Cold, dry and bright, often well below freezing. The palace courtyards are close to empty, flights are at their cheapest, and the city is built for it – heated floors, hot food, warm metro. A good second choice for a Seoul-only weekend.
What I would pick
October, for the certainty: dry, clear and cool, and the one trade is company at the famous sights. If the mud festival is the point, then late July, eyes open, and plan the rest of the days around shade and air-conditioning – which is what we did, and it was still a good trip.
Seoul is a two-day city with a three-day answer, and the extra day is the border.
A layover
Honestly, no. Incheon is a proper distance from the centre, and a short connection buys you the airport, a train and one palace with your bag. If you have a full day, it becomes a real visit – but plan it as a day, not a layover.
A weekend
The right size for Seoul's core, and the shape almost everyone should take first: the old city on foot with the palaces and the hanok villages, tea in Insadong, Myeongdong after dark, and the view from Namsan. The city is dense, the metro is superb, and two days used well feel like four. This is the trip the planned guide is built around.
Four days
The weekend plus one day at the DMZ, which is the day trip the whole peninsula is arranged around, and one more: in July, the mud festival on the coast; in any other month, a second Seoul day that goes slower. This is what we had, from Hong Kong, and it was enough to feel we had seen the city rather than changed trains in it.
A week or more
Seoul plus the country: Busan and the south coast, Gyeongju's tombs and temples, Jeju by air, the mountains of Seoraksan. All of it is a fast train away, and none of it is something we have tested, so this page makes no promises about it. What we can say is that a long weekend does not do justice to South Korea – the country is compact and the next adventure is always only a few hours off.
Five Joseon palaces sit inside the modern centre, and between two of them the hanok villages – whole neighbourhoods of tiled-roof houses – climb the hillside with the skyline stacked behind them. The old city is walkable end to end, the palaces are free if you turn up in a hanbok, and the teahouses of Insadong are where the walking stops. This is the part of Seoul that makes the trip.
Seoul's second act starts when the signs come on. Myeongdong is a thousand lit signs and a thousand snacks, the barbecue places run up five floors, and N Seoul Tower on its hill shows you a city that does not seem to end in any direction. On the river, the locals sit on the steps under the bridges to watch the sun go down over Gangnam.
An hour north of the capital the peninsula stops. Imjingak, on the edge of the civilian control line, is a heavy place of ribbons and memorials and a bullet-riddled train; beyond it are the tunnel the North dug under the border, a hill with a clear view across the river into North Korea, and a gondola over the Imjin to an old American base. Visited on a guided tour, always, and back in the city by mid-afternoon.
Daecheon Beach at Boryeong is a wide, sandy stretch on the Yellow Sea a couple of hours south of Seoul, and for two weeks every July it becomes the mud festival: pools, slides, a mud prison and team games, with the sea right there to rinse off in. The rest of the year it is a Korean seaside town. Inland, Yedangho's long suspension bridge crosses a lake dotted with floating houses.
The rest of the country – Busan and the south coast, Gyeongju's royal tombs, Jeju island, the granite of Seoraksan – is where a week goes, and where we have not yet been. When we have, it will be here.
Sungnyemun gate, the first thing you walk to
Fly into Incheon, a little under twelve hours nonstop from western Europe and served from most of its big hubs. A train runs from the airport into the city in around an hour. Most Western passports enter visa-free for up to 90 days, and the online travel authorisation Korea normally asks for is suspended for visitors from 22 countries until the end of 2026 – check the rule for your passport when you book, because that suspension has a date on it.
In the city you walk and you ride the metro, which is one of the world's best and signed in English throughout; a rechargeable transit card covers metro, bus and the odd taxi. Nobody rents a car for Seoul. The day trips are different: the DMZ can only be visited on a guided tour, and the mud festival is easiest on one, though a train and a bus get you there too.
Cards work almost everywhere and cash is rarely needed. The one thing to sort before landing is your map app – Google Maps will not give you directions in Korea, and the two local apps that will are what every local uses. English gets you through the metro and the tourist centre; a menu in Myeongdong may still be a guess, which is part of the fun.
One number is worth publishing, because it is the part nobody can avoid: return flights from western Europe run about €600 booked ahead, and sale prices go well under. That is what reaching Korea costs, not what the trip costs. On the ground, Seoul is cheaper than the other big Asian capitals for a visitor – food, transport and the palaces are all inexpensive – and the rest is a choice about how you sleep and how you do the border day:
| Style | What that looks like |
|---|---|
| Lean | A guesthouse or hostel bed in the old city, street food and the little side-dish places for most meals, the metro for everything. Seoul is one of the cheaper big Asian capitals to eat in, and the palaces cost next to nothing |
| Core | A mid-range hotel around Jongno or Myeongdong, barbecue dinners, a hanbok for an afternoon, and a guided tour for the DMZ, which is the one day you cannot do alone |
| Splurge | A night in a traditional hanok house, the tasting-menu end of Korean food, a private guide for the border day. The ceiling here is real but not high; Seoul does not punish you for spending less |
The bed is the only line with real range. Everything else in Seoul – the barbecue, the metro, the palaces, the tea – costs much the same whichever style you travel in, which is why a lean weekend here feels nothing like a compromise.
Wear a hanbok and the palaces are free.
Rent the traditional dress near Gyeongbokgung and every grand palace lets you in without a ticket – and, more to the point, you stop being a person photographing the place and become, a little, part of it. In July the costume holds heat like a duvet. Do it anyway.
The day of the week decides which palace you see.
Gyeongbokgung closes on Tuesdays and the other palaces on Mondays, and the DMZ sites are shut on Mondays too. On a weekend-sized trip that one fact sets which day is the palace day and which is the border day before you look at anything else.
Do not come in July expecting anything but a sauna.
Late June to August is monsoon, then heat that does not break at night. We did it because the mud festival only happens then, and it was still a good trip – but if the festival is not your reason, take October or April and get the same city in clear air.
The Boryeong Mud Festival: a day in the mud pits
Booked in an hour, caked in two, rinsed off in the sea - the best stupid day of the year.
The DMZ: as close to North Korea as you can get
Ribbons on the wire, a tunnel dug from the North, and a flag across the river.
Exploring Seoul's palaces in a hanbok
Rent the dress, walk in free, and stop being a tourist for an afternoon.
Seoul in July: the one reason to come anyway
A sauna from the airport onward, and the single date on the calendar that justifies it.
Korean BBQ: how to order like a local
A pile of raw meat, a heater in the table, no instructions - and what I learned.
A night in a hanok in Bukchon
Out of a three-square-metre hotel room and onto a mattress on a hanok floor.
Seoul in a weekend
The old city on foot, a night in a hanbok house, the DMZ, and the tower after dark.