Seoul - Our 3 Day Itinerary.

Our 3 day itinerary for South Korea's capital city Seoul! This was our first stop on our trip, there is definitely something for everyone and so much to do so this only covers the highlights!

Day 1 - Insadong Area.

1 - Gyeongbokgung Palace.

First stop on our list was Gyeongbokgung Palace which is just north of the Insadong area. Tickets cost a couple of hundred won (but if your wearing a traditional Hanok you can go in for free). We timed our trip so that we could catch the free walking tour around the palace externals, the free English tours operate at 11am, 12pm and 1pm. There are also other tours in other languages too!

The tour takes around 1 hour to complete starting at the front of the palace leading you through all the temples and ending at the Hyangwonjeong Pavilion. Luckily this is right next door to our next stop which is the National Folk Museum of Korea.

2 - The National Folk Museum of Korea.

To enter the museum it's free! They have three exhibitions, two permanent ones which highlight traditional Korean culture and history. The exhibitions were really interesting, and most of the exhibited items had descriptions in both English and Korean.

The third exhibition is a special temporary exhibition, when we visited it had an animal winter wonderland theme, it was really well executed with interactive displays through music, lighting and sound.

We spent between 1 - 2 hours here in total, you could probably take more time here if you wanted to and there was interactive areas for children too.

3 - Bukchon Hanok Village.

Next stop, Bukchon Hanok Village, which is around a 5 - 10 minute walk away from the National Folk Museum of Korea. We stopped on route to the village for a late lunch at Dora Curry (They do a 17 different kind of vegetable curry!).

The Bukchon Kanok Village is still lived in by many residents and it's encouraged to be quiet and considerate when visiting. You can wander the streets and observe the traditional housing before turning onto the main streets you see in all the pictures. There's also a tea shop (Osulloc Tea House Bukchon) which provides good views of Seoul whilst sipping on a cup of tea!

4 - Changdeokgung Palace.

Walking on from Bukchon Hanok Village you can reach Changdeokgung Palace by walking in around 10 - 15 minutes. Sadly we were a bit late to make it into the Palace but we could see it from the outside. If you get tickets it was recommended to us that its worth getting tickets for the secret garden's within the palace, particularly during the spring and summer seasons when everythings in full bloom.

5 - Gwangchang Market.

One of Seoul's famous food markets! If you're in the mood for seafood, there is an abundance of fish stalls within the market. It's worth wandering round the market just to take in all the different vendors and all the produce available to buy. Within the centre there is also lots of hot cooked food, each stall sells similar foods and you can even find the famous knife noodles at Cho Yonsun's stand and the pickled crab stand from the Netflix show Street Food Asia.

Tteokbokki is a must try (but you'll also find this in a lot of places within Seoul) its a rice cake with a thick noodle like texture within a spicy sauce, and for desert the Hotteok is the famous fried pancake with a honey sweet sauce.