Know Before You Go
I went to South Korea with my family at the end of October through beginning of November.
| Duration | 12 days – more than enough time to do sightseeing and shopping |
| Temperatures | around 60-70s F during the day, 40s at night. I recommend bringing a winter jacket and light jacket. |
| Best time to visit | I recommend traveling in September or early October when the weather is a bit warmer. |
| Best time to buy airfare tickets | 4-6 months ahead of time will give you the best airfare prices (around $1500 non-stop round-trip per person). The earlier the better. |
| Requirements for traveling | Other than your passport, visiting Korea requires you to have your Covid vaccination card, and either a visa or K-ETA https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/SouthKorea.html. We applied for the K-ETA (no more than $20) |
| Airline | Korean Air or Asiana Airlines. We flew Asiana but I think Korean Air is better. |
Asiana Airline Experience
We flew from JFK International Airport in New York and back. The plane departed on time and we had no issues with luggage. We did have to wear a mask during the entire duration of the flight except when eating.
| Comfort | We had plenty of legroom and the seats were comfortable |
| Entertainment | They had a decent amount of Korean and English movies, shows, few games, and different genres of music to listen to. The English movie section seemed a bit lacking. Most of the movies they had were from the past few years so I’ve already seen them. So I ended up watching Korean movies, which I don’t get to see often. |
| Food and drinks | For drinks they only had soda, pineapple orange juice, coffee, tea, and water. There was no other juice option. They didn’t offer wine or any alcoholic beverage. On our way there, for food the options were steak and bibimbap. There is no vegetarian option so be sure to make a request prior to flying. For snack, we had ham and cheese sandwich (again no vegetarian option). There was an 8 hour gap between each meal. It was probably the only flight where I was left feeling hungry. For the 2nd meal, they offered pork or eggs. This was more of a breakfast even though we were landing at 5pm, which seemed odd. On our way back, they had chicken and steak as the 1st meal option (again no vegetarian option). Pizza for snacking. Then fish or pork for our 2nd meal. |
| Service | The air hostesses kept going up and down the aisle every 30 minutes offering water or juice. This is the only airline I’ve seen do this. I think this led to people making frequent visits to the bathroom so I found this annoying. If you’re sitting in an aisle seat and you constantly have people walking by, I’d be annoyed. Sometimes the air hostess would ask what I want and before I get a chance to respond they would walk away and come back a few minutes later. Rather than multi-tasking, it would be nice to focus on one passenger at a time. Otherwise, they were pretty attentive. |
Transportation
There’s several ways to get to and from the Incheon International Airport and Seoul.
| Taxi | Regular taxis will cost around 50,000 – 80,000 won. This can fit up to 3 people with luggage. Otherwise, the jumbo taxis are an option but will cost more. |
| Bus | Typically, the 6xxx buses will take you to the city. Cost is about 15,000 won per person. |
| Train | The Airport Railroad Express Train (AREX) costs about 10,000 per person. |
We ended up taking the taxi to get to and from the airport. This is to avoid having to carry our luggage around and we don’t have to worry about missing our bus or train. Buses run every 30 minutes. Trains run every 40 minutes. With traffic, it takes about 1 hour 30 minutes to get to and from the airport using the taxi or bus. The train takes 50 minutes but you would also have to factor in the time to get to the train station.
Once you’re in Seoul, you can get a transportation card at any convenience store and keep reloading it. This card can be used for taxis, subways, buses, and even convenience stores and shopping centers. When boarding the bus, tap the card against the sensor, then tap it again before exiting the bus. The same goes for using the subways. (Note: Tap the card per person) For buses, always use the front door to enter, and the middle door to exit. Otherwise, there are many currency exchange places in Seoul with great exchange rates. You can use cash instead to commute. More information on this: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/TRP/TP_ENG_8_1_1.jsp Most places will take credit card so you don’t have to carry around cash to make regular purchases.
Once in Seoul, it’s pretty easy to get to all the main attractions. We used Google Maps and it offered several transportation options to get to pretty much any attraction. The transportation service in South Korea is amazing. Even if you miss a train or bus, don’t worry. You will get another one within 10 minutes.
In my next post, I will go over all the attractions we’ve seen in Seoul.
