Google Maps does not give walking directions, transit routes or turn-by-turn driving in South Korea. It still works for finding a place, reading reviews, and saving a pin. The fix is not “switch apps entirely” — it is knowing which task belongs to which app, because Naver Map and KakaoMap split the work differently.
The reason is not a bug. South Korean law restricts the export of detailed mapping data outside the country, a policy tied to national security concerns on a divided peninsula. Google has asked for an exception more than once and been refused. Because Google cannot host the detailed road and transit data on its own servers under local rules, its app in Korea defaults to a thin layer: pins, photos, reviews, business listings. The routing engine underneath — the part that actually knows which street is one-way, or which subway transfer saves four minutes — is missing.
What Google Maps still does correctly
Keep using it for these. There is no reason to switch.
- Searching by English name. Typing “Gyeongbokgung” or a hotel’s English name still finds the right pin, with English reviews attached.
- Saving a location before you travel. A starred pin on Google Maps survives the trip and syncs across your devices. This part of Google’s ecosystem is unaffected by the data restriction.
- Reading reviews and photos. Google’s review volume for well-known sights and restaurants is often larger than either Korean app offers in English.
- Getting your bearings at a distance. Zoomed-out, it shows you the shape of a district well enough to see that, say, Insadong and Bukchon sit near each other.
What it fails at, silently, is anything that requires a route: walking paths, bus and subway transfers, driving directions with real turns. It will often draw a straight line between two points, or offer no route at all, with no clear error telling you why.
The decision rule
Three Korean-made apps cover what Google Maps cannot. They are not redundant with each other — each is built for a different job.
| Task | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Walking directions in English | Naver Map | Has a full English interface and turn-by-turn walking routes |
| Subway and bus transit routing | Naver Map | Live arrival times, transfer counts, and platform-level detail, in English |
| Calling a taxi | KakaoMap or the Kakao T app | Kakao’s taxi-hailing network is the dominant one in Seoul |
| Driving directions | KakaoMap or Naver Map | Both route Korean roads properly; Google does not |
| Searching an English business name | Google Maps is fine | Search and reviews are unaffected by the routing restriction |
| Saving a pin before you arrive | Google Maps is fine | Pins sync normally; only routing is broken |
In practice: open Naver Map for anything on foot or on the subway. Open KakaoMap, or the dedicated Kakao T app, the moment you want a taxi. Keep Google Maps open in a second tab for the name search and the reviews. None of this requires deleting an app you already trust — it requires opening a second one at the right moment.
Why Naver and Kakao split the job
Naver Map’s English interface is the more complete of the two for a visitor. It handles walking routes, bus numbers, and subway transfers with step counts and timing, translated. KakaoMap covers similar routing ground but its real strength for a visitor is underneath it: Kakao T, the taxi-hailing layer, which many drivers and dispatch systems in Seoul run on. If the goal is “get me there on foot or by train,” reach for Naver. If the goal is “get me a car,” reach for Kakao.
Both apps are developed by Korean companies — Naver and Kakao — rather than by any government body, and both publish their own current app versions and feature lists on their respective sites; features and interface details do change between versions, so confirm the current English-language functions on the developer’s own page before relying on either for a specific trip.
Why this trips up visitors specifically
A resident learns the gap quickly and works around it without thinking. A visitor often does not know the gap exists until a Google Maps walking route leads them down a street that does not connect the way the line suggests. This matters most on short, tight connections — catching a last train, for instance, where working out your real cutoff depends on knowing the actual transfer time, not a straight-line guess.
It also matters at the subway level in a way that is easy to miss. Seoul’s stations are large, and an exit number is not a geography lesson — it is a routing instruction, and exit numbers are explained in detail separately. Google Maps will often get you to the station. It is far less reliable at telling you which of a dozen exits actually puts you outside the right gate.
Where this intersects with payment
Once you are routing correctly, the next friction point is the fare card itself. Seoul’s transit fares are distance-based, which means you tap in and tap out on both the subway and the bus — how T-money works is covered here, including what happens if you forget the tap-out and lose the free transfer.
What this does not change
None of this affects entry to the palaces, the shrine at Jongmyo, or any of the fixed closing-day rules that structure a day in the old city — which palace closes on which day is covered here, since Gyeongbokgung closes Tuesday while the other four close Monday. A map app gets you to the gate. It has no bearing on whether the gate is open.
For sources on the underlying restriction itself, South Korean and international reporting on the map-data export issue is the place to check current status, since the rule has been the subject of repeated government review; Reuters has covered the dispute between Google and Korean regulators, and it is worth reading directly rather than relying on a summary, including this one.
The short version
Use Google Maps to find and save. Use Naver Map to walk and ride transit, in English. Use KakaoMap or Kakao T to get a taxi. Nothing about this requires giving up the app you already know — only knowing, for each task, which of the three actually has the data underneath it.
For more on how the city’s transport layer fits together beyond mapping — fare cards, last trains, and the airport run — the Getting Around archive and Getting Here & Onward archive cover the rest of it. Details on how this site researches and checks what it publishes are on the About page.
Access Seoul is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favorites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those.
Featured image: Photo by Basile Morin, source, CC BY-SA 4.0
