Bongeunsa Temple
Seoul, South Korea
Bongeunsa is a 1,200-year-old Buddhist temple hidden in the shadow of Gangnam's glass towers — a spiritual enclave of wooden halls, stone pagodas, and ancient trees that provides the most jarring contrast in a city full of jarring contrasts.
Bukchon Hanok Village
Bukchon-ro, Seoul, South Korea
Bukchon Hanok Village is a hillside neighbourhood of 600-year-old traditional Korean hanok houses wedged between two palaces — Gyeongbokgung to the west and Changdeokgung to the east — and it is simultaneously one of Seoul's most photographed attractions and a residential neighbourhood where actual people live, a tension that has made it one of the most debated tourism management challenges in the city.
COEX Mall & Starfield Library
Yeongdong-daero, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
COEX is the largest underground shopping mall in Asia — a subterranean city beneath the Gangnam convention district that houses over 300 shops, a multiplex cinema, an aquarium, and the Starfield Library, which has become the most photographed interior space in Seoul.
Gwangjang Market
Changgyeonggung-ro, Seoul, South Korea
Gwangjang Market is Korea's first permanent market — established in 1905, and now a sprawling, chaotic, magnificent food hall where the stall vendors have been perfecting the same dishes for generations and the communal seating puts you elbow-to-elbow with Korean grandmothers, office workers on lunch break, and tourists who've seen the market on Netflix and are trying to figure out what to order.
Hongdae
Hongik-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Hongdae is Seoul's youth culture capital — a neighbourhood surrounding Hongik University (Korea's top art school) that has been the centre of indie music, street art, and underground culture since the 1990s.
Insadong
Insadong-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Insadong is Seoul's traditional culture street — a pedestrianised corridor of art galleries, tea houses, antique shops, and craft stores that has been the centre of Korean artistic commerce since the Joseon dynasty, when the neighbourhood was home to the artists and calligraphers who served the royal court.
Jogyesa Temple
55 Ujeongguk-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Jogyesa is the head temple of Korean Zen Buddhism — the administrative and spiritual centre of the Jogye Order, which oversees the majority of Buddhist temples and monks in South Korea.
Jongmyo Shrine
Jong-ro, Seoul, South Korea
Jongmyo Shrine is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the most sacred Confucian site in Korea — a royal ancestral shrine where the spirit tablets of Joseon dynasty kings and queens have been venerated for over 600 years.
Noryangjin Fish Market
674 Nodeul-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul
Noryangjin Fish Market is Seoul's largest seafood market — a vast, fluorescent-lit hall of tanks, trays, and chopping blocks where over 800 vendors sell everything that swims, crawls, or clings to a rock in the waters around the Korean peninsula.
Explore culture in Seoul
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