A Week in Seoul - Access Seoul

The rooftops of Myeongdong and central Seoul seen from the Namsan ropeway — Photograph by oimo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

A week is enough to stop sightseeing. It adds a second day outside the city, the neighbourhoods rather than the monuments, and time to go back to whatever you liked.

The plan

Days 1–5 — As above.
Day 6 — The DMZ, if you want it. ⚠️ It cannot be done independently: an authorised tour, booked ahead, and your passport, not a copy. Tours are cancelled at short notice when the situation requires it. Confirm what your specific tour includes, because “DMZ tour” covers several quite different itineraries.
Day 6, the alternative — Incheon — about an hour west on line 1, ordinary fare, no booking. Korea’s oldest Chinatown and the nineteenth-century open-port district, and the ferries to the west-coast islands.
Day 7, morning — Neighbourhoods rather than sights: Seongsu for the old shoe factories turned design district, Euljiro for the print works, Ikseon-dong for the hanok alleys.
Day 7, afternoon — A second section of the city wall — Inwangsan is the hardest and the best, starting at Changuimun.
Day 7, evening — Go back to whichever of the first six days you cut short. Everyone has one.

People walking the raised stone path across the courtyard to Myeongjeongjeon in autumn — Photograph by Noh Mun Duek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

⭐ Other cities worth the train: Gyeongju, the Silla capital, is about two hours by KTX from Seoul Station to Singyeongju and is the one place in Korea with more history above ground than Seoul. Busan is under three hours by KTX and is a genuinely different country at the other end — both are better as an overnight than as a day trip.

Two women frying bindaetteok mung bean pancakes at a Gwangjang Market stall — Photograph by Pfc. Bo Park, 2ID PAO, US Army, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

What this plan is built around

Not a list of sights, but the constraints: Gyeongbokgung closes on Tuesday while Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung and Jongmyo close on Monday; Jongmyo is guided-tour-only except on Saturdays and Culture Day; the Huwon garden must be booked ahead and is capped; and the last train goes around midnight, which is the only hard deadline in a city where nothing else shuts.

Traditional hanok houses and their tiled eaves in Bukchon at golden hour — Photograph by Basile Morin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Other lengths

5 daysFive Days in Seoul 3 daysThree Days in Seoul 1 dayOne Day in Seoul

Checked on 5 September 2026. Closing days, ticket structures and booking requirements change — confirm before you travel. All sixteen sights, one page each, in Landmarks & Sights.