Recommended independent travel itineraries for Korea
Chiaoling Yu
7 hours ago
Seoul Free Travel Day 1 'Ikseon-dong Retro Tour - Hongdae Shopping District · Absurd Raw Meat'
#Ikseon-dong is such a great place for photos, and there are lots of cafés where you can eat, drink, and rest, so the rest of the itinerary couldn’t be followed at all 😅. Next time I come to Ikseon-dong I’ll need to save at least half a day here.
#creatrip offered absurd raw meat discount coupons, solved dinner here, all-you-can-eat barbecue, super high value for money, mission accomplished 😆 Also tried the soju-with-barbeque vibe from K-dramas~ Neither of us can drink at all; every sip of this soju felt like playing a punishment game, so rough 😂
#Ikseon-dong vintage-style outfits all day, everyone's feet are exhausted, and a friend finally just took off their shoes and walked back to the hotel barefoot 😆
Seoul independent travel Day 2 'Gwanghwamun - Gyeongbokgung - Samcheong-dong - Bukchon Hanok Village - X Insa-dong - Myeongdong'
Fortunately the weather wasn't hot, otherwise I couldn't have worn the hanbok for six hours😄
Arrived at the hanbok shop at 9:30, and changing took over an hour. Fortunately we still made it to the 11:00 Gwanghwamun changing of the guard ceremony! Today’s schedule felt pretty grueling, but luckily my travel companions had good tempers. In the end we didn’t make it to Insadong (we gave up).
#Korean restaurant signs are all unreadable and hard to find, missed out on having Samcheong-dong noodle dumplings, randomly picked a local spot, the assorted fried seafood rolls and odeng were very good, but the blood sausage had a very strong taste, really couldn’t handle it ❌
#BukchonHanokVillage I heard there are eight scenic spots to photograph, but we were really tired after walking from Gyeongbokgung, so we just took a few casual photos to say we’d been here. Visiting all eight spots would be too much—better to leave a little regret for the next trip to Korea 😆
#Purikura machines are still very popular in Korea — wearing hanbok and taking (playing) another photo like a high school student, feeling young again 😊
#Finally went back to the familiar Myeongdong shopping district and ate the must-try Korean fried chicken, Myeongdong dumplings, and kimbap
Seoul Independent Travel Day 3 'Myeongdong Cathedral - Dongdaemun Jjimjilbang - Cosmetic Clinic Site Visit - Final Shopping in Myeongdong'
#Myeongdong iconic spot - Myeongdong Cathedral, with its distinctive classical beauty. Today I happened to come across a bridal party taking wedding photos, and we took a few lovely shots from the photographer's angles too 😆
#Experience a jjimjilbang, drink banana milk, get a tea egg tapped on your head, then learn the sitcom-style middle-aged-woman way of zoning out and lying flat — so down-to-earth 😆
This jjimjilbang can also be booked through Creaptrip. It has more than five steam rooms with different temperatures, gradually ranging from 41°C up to 79°C, and it felt like my pores opened up and absorbed a lot of herbal formulas. In the end we went into a -12°C room to shrink the pores and lock the herbs into the skin, no wonder every Korean’s skin is so good — even women in their seventies have glowing skin 😆 Finally we soaked in a medicinal bath to fully relax the muscles and relieve the soreness from doing 16 squats for several days 😂
#Korean medical aesthetics field visit — so one day a former coworker came back to visit. I noticed her complexion was glowing and thought it was from being free of work stress, but it turned out to be thanks to cosmetic treatments. I’m easily influenced, so I was immediately invited by colleagues and friends to come try it too 😆😆😆 and just like that, we went ✈️🇰🇷
Went to the clinic in person — it was really packed. Is medical aesthetic treatment Korea's everyday skincare? 😮 This time I did Thermage and skin booster injections; I hope they work like a 'Return My Pretty Fist' miracle and make me look younger 😆
#Last stop Myeongdong shopping district to have samgyetang with ginseng to rejuvenate the body, then visit a crowded drugstore for both internal and external remedies 😆
Summary — if you don't know how to plan, the creator section actually has lots of travel information to browse, along with introductions and recommendations for various attractions; after referencing them it's easy to put together your own Seoul trip 👍
