Planning & Practicalities

The mechanics, in the order they will matter

Money

Korea is close to cashless. Cards work in convenience stores, taxis, market stalls and street vendors. Carry a small amount of cash for the oldest market stalls and for a temple donation box, and otherwise you will barely use it. ⚠️ Foreign cards are declined by a surprising number of domestic-only payment terminals; a T-money card covers the gap for small purchases.

Nobody tips. Anywhere.

Connectivity

Public wi-fi is genuinely everywhere — on the subway, on buses, in cafés, in the street. A local data SIM or eSIM is still worth having because so much of daily life runs through apps. ⚠️ Google Maps does not do walking and driving directions properly in Korea, for legal reasons about mapping data export. Public transport directions work; the rest does not. The local mapping apps are what everyone uses and they have English interfaces.

Language

Signage on transport, at sights and on main streets is in Korean, English and often Chinese and Japanese. Away from those, less so. ⭐ Hangul takes about an hour to learn to read — it was designed in 1443 to be learnable in a morning and it very nearly is — and being able to sound out a sign or a menu changes the trip out of all proportion to the effort.

The weather, which is more extreme than people expect

• Spring — the best time, with blossom in April. ⚠️ Also the season for particulate haze blowing in from the west, which can be bad enough to cancel a view.
• Summer — hot and very humid, with the monsoon concentrated in roughly late June through July. The rain is heavy and sustained rather than showery.
• Autumn — clear, dry, and the best light of the year. October and early November are the peak for the maples and the busiest time at the palaces.
• Winter — cold and dry, well below freezing for weeks, with a bitter wind. It is also the emptiest and clearest time to see the city, and every interior is heated hard.

⚠️ Seollal and Chuseok

The lunar new year and the harvest festival are the two occasions when Korea genuinely stops. Museums and palaces close, many restaurants and shops shut for several days, and the entire country travels at once, which makes intercity trains and buses nearly impossible to book. The dates move every year with the lunar calendar. Check them against your dates before you book anything.

Safety

Seoul is exceptionally safe by the standards of any large city, at any hour. The ordinary cautions apply and very little else does.

Rubbish, which is a real system

⚠️ Household waste is separated strictly and food waste goes in its own bin, often needing a paid bag or a card. If you are in an apartment rental this will be your problem and the building will have rules posted. Public bins on the street are genuinely scarce — people carry rubbish until they find one, usually at a convenience store.