How many days do you need in Seoul?
Four days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Seoul.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Seoul · 4 days South Korea
Best time: Late April to May for blossom then mild sun, and October for the clearest skies of the year and autumn colour on the mountains.
Palaces and hanokDay 1
🏰9:00 AMGyeongbokgung Palace
The main Joseon palace, burned twice and rebuilt, with a changing of the guard at the gate on the hour.
🚶 ~11 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 0.4 mi
📍1:00 PMBukchon Hanok Village
Six hundred traditional tile-roofed houses on the hill between two palaces, still lived in. Keep your voice down; residents have asked.
🚶 ~16 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
📍4:00 PMInsadong
Tea houses, paper shops, and calligraphy brushes on a lane of alleys running off the main street.
Markets and the towerDay 2
🍽️10:00 AMGwangjang Market
A century-old covered market where the food stalls in the middle are the destination: mung-bean pancakes and knife-cut noodles.
🚶 ~15 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
📍2:00 PMDongdaemun Design Plaza
Zaha Hadid's seamless silver building, with a section of the excavated Joseon city wall preserved beside it.
🚶 ~42 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.6 mi
🏰6:00 PMNamsan and N Seoul Tower
Cable car or a wooded climb to the peak in the middle of the city, timed for sunset over the whole basin.
Hongdae and the riverDay 3
📍11:00 AMWar Memorial of Korea
The clearest account anywhere of the war that split the peninsula, free, with hardware in the grounds.
🚗 ~8 min · 2.4 mi
⛴️3:00 PMHan River park at Yeouido
Bike hire, convenience-store ramyeon on the grass, and the local habit of ordering fried chicken delivered to a riverbank picnic mat.
🚗 ~7 min · 2.0 mi
📍7:00 PMHongdae
The university district: buskers on the main street, tiny live venues, and food until very late.
Gangnam and a last marketDay 4
⛩️10:00 AMBongeunsa Temple
A working Buddhist temple from 794, sitting directly across from the convention centre towers. The contrast is the whole city in one view.
🚗 ~8 min · 2.3 mi
🌳2:00 PMSeoul Forest
A former racetrack and water works turned into parkland, with a deer enclosure and cafés in the converted brick buildings.
🚗 ~11 min · 3.0 mi
📍6:00 PMIhwa Mural Village
A hillside neighbourhood painted by artists to stop its demolition, with stairs up to the old fortress wall and the city lighting up below.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.
This is one of 126 free itineraries. Open it, change anything you want, and it becomes your trip.