Seoul is an absolutely massive city, covering over 12,500 sq. km (4,800 sq. mi.) and home to 26 million people – half the total population of South Korea. The city is the 4th largest in the world, and it is jam packed with vibrant and interesting places to explore.
Additionally, the city is home to one of the longest and most comprehensive public transit systems in the world – all of which is easily accessible with a single reloadable transit card.
Needless to say, these factors strongly encourage and facilitate exploration from travelers. During our visit we often picked a single destination and then spent the day wandering towards/around that goal, leading to some great days out – we’ll describe one here!
National Museum of Korea
A few kilometers from our first hotel in the Itaewon neighborhood was the National Museum of Korea. While it was a bit cold the sky was clear and blue (and the museum was downhill from us), so we decided to walk our way there.
The building is a large and impressive modern structure, with a huge open-air atrium dividing the permanent exhibitions and special/rotating collections. Making your way to the building you’ll pass by a pond (frozen) and pagoda garden:
Probably even more beautiful in the warmer months – most of the potted plants were winterized with batches of straw:
Before going into the building (admission to permanent exhibits is free!) we climbed the stairs to take in the view of the city and surrounding landscape:
Then it was time for the museum!
We spent several hours in here, going through all of the floors. The museum is set up very well, with the “recommended” course taking you through the entire historical timeline of Korea – from the Kulp’o Culture in 4000 BCE up to the modern era. Beyond this there are sections dedicated to artifacts from different global regions, buddhist artwork, pottery, and selections of donated items from notable personal collections.
There is also a “Zen” room for you to meditate/reflect at about the midpoint of the course:
A preserved 12-story pagoda dominating the rear atrium:
And a very cool interior roof:
This visit was great, and we’d say its an absolute must-do for anyone making a trip to Seoul – one of the more comprehensive history museums we’ve been to, and 100% free!
Seoul Forest Park
After the museum we continued wandering, hopping on the Metro towards Seoul Forest Park. This is a massive park along the Han river, primarily composed of – you guessed it – forest. Since it was winter some areas weren’t fully open yet and the colors weren’t as vibrant as you’d get in the summer, but there was still plenty to explore!
We first came across a public gym, with body-weight equipment freely available for use (we’d soon learn these gyms are all over the place in Korea). Interestingly, there was a cage full of rabbits right next to this one!
Kaitlin hopped on the inversion table at the gym to stretch out her back:
Then we moved on, coming across a cool bee house:
Before the main event – deer! The forest has a population of about 50 deer in an enclosed area. Normally you can buy food and hand-feed the deer, but unfortunately COVID-era rules were still in effect preventing it. So we just admired them through the fencing and from above on an elevated walking track:
Speaking of – the next thing we did was take the walking track which crossed over a section of the park. This offered some amazing views of nature in the foreground and metropolis in the background:
The pathway connected with another riverside park, but we decided to head back through Forest Park to a nearby neighborhood. We passed by this statue:
And made our way out of the park, passing by another outdoor gym and more space for activities – croquet, badminton, tennis, and basketball courts, plus ping pong tables open to use! We’d come back this way to explore the nearby Seongsu-dong neighborhood, and it did not disappoint. We found some awesome traditional food at a place called Grandmothers Recipe:
Then walked through the neighborhood towards a local craft brewery – Amazing Brewing Co. We spent some time sampling some of the seemingly endless beers on tap here:
Then decided to make our way back to the hotel, which was very easy to accomplish with our metro cards! We only had one slight hiccup – nearby the metro station we needed was a Subway, and at this point we realized we were still hungry:
All in all a great semi-planned, freeform adventure through Seoul!
