Elena booked the Seoul Guided Walking Tour on her own: a Naksan walk that ended at “Wait for Confirmation”, and a Namsangol guided tour with no booking

On the night of Thursday 3 December, back from Seokpajeong, Elena opened her notebook on the table in her lodging and planned the week ahead. The heavy coat she had got out for the cold hung over the back of her chair. Elena is 27 and comes from Spain, and she is someone who holds scenes on a screen up against the real Seoul. Korean dramas kept showing someone walking a stretch of the city wall and telling the story of the path, and she wanted to stand beside that person just once. At the top of a fresh page she wrote “[S#1. Night, city wall path — the guide’s voice, the wall lit up]”.

The way in she found was the Seoul Guided Walking Tour. It is a programme in which you walk round well-known parts of Seoul while a Seoul culture and tourism guide explains them, and it costs nothing. The guides are volunteers who explain Seoul’s history, culture and nature in plain terms to visitors from Korea and abroad. Walking with someone who would tell her the stories, without paying a single won, felt to Elena like being handed a filming permit for free.

From the booking page onwards, though, the programme kept drifting slightly off her script. Where to hear a foreign-language guide, how to book, how many people it takes to go ahead, whether it runs in winter: she tripped over each in turn. The first booking she made never went ahead. That week, the place where Elena finally heard a guide was not the city wall but Namsangol Hanok Village.

The Cue — At a glance

The Seoul Guided Walking Tour is free, which makes it easy to give it a day of your trip, but book alone and you won’t know until the evening two days before whether it goes ahead. If there are two or more of you, put everyone on one booking. If you’re on your own, note down the weekday guided tour at Namsangol Hanok Village as that day’s fallback. In December, choose a daytime course over a night one, and match the closing weekday before you match the date.

What is free on Seoul’s free walking tours? The guiding is free; admission and transport are not

What is free is the guided walk itself, and anything you spend along the way is yours to pay. Admission to the royal palaces, fees for cultural experience programmes and transport are all at your own expense. On the Gyeongbokgung course, for instance, the guiding costs nothing, but you still buy your own ticket into the palace. Experience programmes run by museums aren’t part of the tour either, so if you want to join one, you do it on your own once the tour is over. Elena laughed to herself at the idea of a shoot with a budget of zero where the set still charged admission.

Open in Kakao Map — Chungmuro Station

You can’t choose your guide, and you may end up walking as one group with people you have never met. Guides are assigned at random, and as long as the course isn’t over its limit, you may share the tour with other people who booked. Since the guides are all volunteers, there are days when a booking can’t be matched because no guide signed up for that date. Elena decided to treat it as a shoot where casting is left to luck instead of picking the lead herself. The city wall scenes in dramas always had passers-by drifting through, so a group of strangers would make perfectly good extras.

Which course has a foreign-language guide? The course list doesn’t show languages

A foreign-language guide isn’t something you pick from the course list. At first Elena went down the course list on the booking page line by line, looking for a course with an English guide attached. She switched back and forth between the English and Korean pages, and the same courses came up in the same order, only with the names translated. Nowhere beside a course was there a label like “English available”. It felt like scanning a list of sets for one with English dialogue and coming back empty-handed.

Instead, one line in the booking consent text caught her eye. It says that Korean nationals whose native language is Korean cannot apply for a foreign-language guide. In other words, the foreign-language guiding is there for visitors from outside, and Elena was rather pleased to read it. As the course list gives you no way to pick a guiding language, if you have one in mind it’s reassuring to send the office a line about it by email beforehand. Elena decided that email would be the first thing she did once she had booked, and copied the address onto the last page of her notebook.

The first language Elena looked for was Spanish. The page languages you can choose on the booking site’s front page are Korean, English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Indonesian/Malay, and Spanish wasn’t one of them. She pulled a face for a moment, then tapped the English page. Someone from Spain hearing Seoul’s stories in English, if it came to that, seemed like a scene in its own right. A new line went into her notebook: “[Hoped-for dialogue — English, no subtitles]”.

Does it run in December? Most night courses end in mid-November, and daytime courses close on different weekdays

Most night tours wrap up for the year in mid-November, because the night courses run from mid-March to mid-November. This was exactly where Elena’s “[S#1. Night, city wall path]” came to a halt. When she opened the December booking calendar, the Namsan Fortress night course had no slots at all, and the only night slots left were at Gwanghwamun Square, on Sundays at 18:00 and 20:00. It wasn’t the city wall and the Sunday didn’t fit, so she tapped the word “night” a few times with the tip of her pen and then struck it through.

The daytime courses do run in December. The catch is that each course closes on a different weekday, so match the day of the week before the date. Elena went through the December booking calendar, found the weekdays when each course had no slots, and copied them into her notebook as in the table below. Even among the palace courses, Gyeongbokgung closes on Tuesdays while Deoksugung, Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung close on Mondays. Bukchon closes on both Sundays and Mondays, so if you’re visiting at the weekend, it has to be the Saturday.

Naksan, Cheonggyecheon and Gwanghwamun Square have no closing weekday on the December calendar, so even if Monday is the only day you have, you can still pick one of them. Elena compared the two rows with a city wall in them. Namsan closed on Mondays and Naksan had no closing day, so whichever day she moved to, Naksan was the one less likely to trip her up. Having swapped night for day, she decided to swap places as well, and drew a circle round Naksan.

She settled the time then too. Daytime courses start at 10:00 and 14:00 on weekdays, and at 10:00, 14:00 and 15:00 at weekends. Only the Gyeongbokgung course runs 30 minutes later: 10:30 and 14:30 on weekdays, with 15:30 added at weekends. Most courses take 2 to 3 hours on foot, and winter days are short, so starting at 10:00 rather than in the afternoon gives you more of the walk in daylight. Elena wrote “[10:00 — day shoot, sunlight instead of lamps]” in the Naksan box.

Where do the walking tours meet, and how long do they take? Meeting places and lengths by course

The meeting place differs by course, and the text message and email you get once the tour is confirmed include your booking details. Each course’s English page gives the meeting place and the length of the tour, so that night Elena copied the courses she was weighing up into the table below, like a list of call points for a shoot. Plenty of them meet right at a subway exit or in front of a ticket booth, so even someone new to Seoul shouldn’t struggle to find them. Elena put a small star beside every course that meets at a station exit.

Even the shortest is 2 hours, so if you plan to go straight on to lunch or something else afterwards, leave that much room. The Gyeongbokgung course walks inside the palace, so the admission ticket is extra, and pushchairs and wheelchairs can be borrowed at the Heungnyemun Gate entrance. The Naksan course Elena chose meets at Exit 7 of Dongdaemun Station. It was a station she could reach from her lodging in one go on the subway, so she just underlined that row and moved on to the next box.

The Naksan course starts at Heunginjimun, passes the Seoul City Wall Museum, Palgakjeong (Hongdeogi Field), the observatory at the top of Naksan and the Naksan Exhibition Hall, and ends at Hyehwamun Gate. It follows the stretch of the city wall from Dongdaemun to Naksan, which made it the closest course to the city wall scene Elena had in mind. She copied the stops into her notebook in that order and gave each box a scene number. Heunginjimun was S#2, and Hyehwamun Gate was the final scene. One night scene had been struck out and six daytime scenes had taken its place, so she didn’t feel short-changed in the least.

The other course Elena weighed up to the end was Cheonggyecheon. It meets in front of Exit 5 of Gwanghwamun Station and follows the water for 2 hours, past Cheonggye Plaza, Gwangtonggyo, Samilgyo, Supyogyo and Saebyeokdari, to Gwangjang Market. This course had no closing weekday on the December calendar either, which made it a good fallback for a day when Naksan fell through. With four bridges in a row instead of a wall, Elena noted Cheonggyecheon in the margin purely as a standby set. She was already thinking she could give each of the four bridges, from Gwangtonggyo to Saebyeokdari, a scene number of its own.

How do you book a walking tour? Online, at least 3 days ahead, with next month opening on the 15th

Individual bookings are made online, at least 3 days before the tour. On the booking site, dobo.visitseoul.net, you choose the page language, then the number of people and the course, then the date and time. Elena opened the booking page on the morning of Friday 4 December, and the day she picked was five days later: Wednesday 9 December, the Naksan course at 10:00. She was well inside the three-day limit.

The rows Elena underlined first were the bottom two. If you cancel with less than 4 hours to go more than twice, future bookings may be restricted, so if it looks as if you can’t make it, cancel early. On a set, an actor who fails to turn up at the call time finds the next booking hard to get too, so Elena looked at that row for a long while. It was only three days later that she learnt the row that would actually catch her out was the one in the middle, “17:00 two days before”.

If you’re arriving in Seoul early next month, put the 15th of this month in your calendar. Next month’s slots for individual bookings open that day, so before then you can tap the date you want and still not be able to apply. There is also a note that weekend slots can fill up early, so if you’re after a Saturday or Sunday, it’s worth opening the page on the 15th itself. Because Elena chose a weekday slot on 4 December, she ran into neither of those hurdles.

The booking form also asks you to pick an age band. Children under 14 who come without a guardian are turned away on the spot, so if you’re bringing a child, an adult should book with them. There is also a request not to take part on days when you have symptoms such as a fever, a cough or a sore throat. Elena laughed to herself as she tapped the “20–29” box. It was the first time being 27 had been lumped into one box quite that wide.

What happens if you book alone? One person waits for confirmation, and the booking is cancelled automatically if there are fewer than 2 by 17:00 two days before

You can make an individual booking for just one person, but if that session has fewer than 2 people booked in total, it doesn’t go ahead. A booking for one is left on “Wait for Confirmation”. If the session still has fewer than 2 people booked by 17:00 two days before the tour, the booking is cancelled automatically. You are told separately, by email or text message, whether it is confirmed or cancelled.

Elena read that “wait” exactly the wrong way round. On a film set, standby means the camera is about to roll. Closing the booking page, she sent a short email to the address on the last page of her notebook saying she was hoping for an English guide, wrote “[Naksan — standby]” in her notebook, and treated it as more or less confirmed. Only three days later would she find out that this was the kind of wait where you stand by until your co-star arrives. In those three days she drew in camera positions beside the Naksan scene numbers.

A booking made alone isn’t always cancelled. What decides an automatic cancellation is not how many people are on your booking but how many are booked on that session in total, so if even one other person signs up for the same time, the minimum of two is met. The catch is that with a booking for one, you can’t know until the evening two days before whether anyone else will sign up. If two or more of you are travelling together, put everyone on one booking, and firm up the day once the confirmation text and email have arrived.

If you have booked alone, turn “17:00 two days before” into a weekday on your own schedule and write it down. For a Wednesday tour it is 17:00 on Monday, for a Saturday tour 17:00 on Thursday, and for a Sunday tour 17:00 on Friday. Until then, with no word of confirmation, the wait goes on, and if the numbers fall short, the cancellation is decided at that time. Elena hadn’t done that sum, so she made no preparations at all until the email arrived on Monday evening. A single line in her notebook saying 17:00 on Monday would have saved her a frantic evening.

On the evening of Monday 7 December, an email landed on Elena’s phone. It said her Naksan booking for Wednesday had been cancelled because there weren’t enough people. She read it twice and then said out loud, “So it wasn’t a standby. The casting fell through.” Then she struck through “standby” in her notebook and wrote beside it in big letters “[Co-star no-show — shoot cancelled]”.

On that Monday evening, with the cancellation email in hand, she couldn’t book a different course for the same Wednesday either. Individual bookings close 3 days before the tour, so bookings for Wednesday had already closed on Sunday. If you have booked alone, open your email and texts first thing once 17:00 two days before has passed, and have one fallback for that day decided in advance. Elena’s fallback had to be somewhere she could go without a booking, and as she leafed back through her notebook, her hand stopped at a page from the month before.

On your own? Try the regular guided tour at Namsangol Hanok Village, four times a day with no booking

For someone travelling alone, the easiest guided tour is the regular one at Namsangol Hanok Village. It runs four times a day, at 10:30, 12:00, 14:00 and 15:30, and it is free. The guiding languages are Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese, and which language a session is in depends on the date and time. Ring 02-2264-4412 before you go and ask which session is in the language you want, and you won’t make a wasted trip. On weekdays you just turn up in time with no booking, and at weekends and on public holidays they only take online bookings.

A booked course doesn’t settle whether it goes ahead until the evening two days before, but on a weekday you can make up your mind on the morning and simply go to Namsangol. As for the day, anywhere from Wednesday to Friday is the most relaxed choice. Monday and Tuesday are the days given as Namsangol’s closing day, so if you want to go on either of those, ring the number above first. Elena’s Wednesday happened to fall inside that range, so the day she had meant for Naksan simply moved to Namsangol.

With the four sessions spread evenly through the day, someone travelling alone can easily pick one to fit their plans. You can see somewhere else in the morning and come for 12:00 or 14:00, and if you arrive late in the afternoon, 15:30 is the last session of the day. Miss one and you can wander round the village until the next. Elena kept her morning free at her lodging and decided to fit the day round one session in the language she wanted. Rather than waiting on a verdict on the evening two days before, like a booked course, this was a day settled by one phone call that morning.

Namsangol wasn’t new to Elena. It was the way she had walked one Thursday night in early November, to be served a coffee table spread at the Ogin-dong House. The “Chungmuro Station Exit 4” she had noted down then came in just as handy this time. Come out of Exit 3 or 4 of Chungmuro Station and go 150 m along the road between Dongguk University Chungmuro Media Center and Maeil Business Newspaper, and you are there in about 5 minutes. Going back to a set she had already shot made even the route feel easy.

The Wednesday Elena heard the Namsangol tour: one phone call before setting out, and the 14:00 session

On the morning of Wednesday 9 December, Elena didn’t repeat her Seokpajeong mistake. Before leaving her lodging, she brought up the sentence on her translation app and rang 02-2264-4412 first. When she asked which session that day had an English guide, the answer was 14:00. Only after writing “[14:00 — English, call done]” in her notebook did she put her coat on. It was exactly the order you would expect from someone who had bought a ticket twice the week before for want of one phone call.

A little before 14:00, Elena walked into Namsangol Hanok Village and stood beside the people waiting for the tour. Being one group with a few travellers she had never met, and not being able to choose the guide, were the same as on a booked course. Only one thing was different: there was no waiting until the evening two days before to see who would come. She opened her notebook and wrote at the top of a fresh page “[S#1, revised. Day, hanok courtyard — the guide’s voice]”. Night and the city wall had both gone, but the voice she most wanted to hear was still in the scene.

Each time the guide moved on, Elena added another scene number. In dramas, a hanok cuts straight from the scene of opening the gate to the scene of sitting on the wooden porch, but following the guide on foot, she found a courtyard and a threshold in between. Rather than writing down everything the guide said, she wrote down the places where the guide stopped. For Elena, where a story begins always came before the lines. By the time the tour was ending, the scene numbers in her notebook had gone past ten.

As the tour drew to a close, Elena half raised her hand and asked one question. She wanted to know the guide’s favourite spot in the village. The guide smiled and pointed to one corner of the eaves, and Elena named that spot “[The guide’s shot]”. Being handed a scene that someone else had chosen is something that rarely happens when you travel alone.

After the tour, Elena walked past the Ogin-dong House on her own. On that night last month she had seen only the teacups under the lamplight, but by day she could see the house right up to the line of its eaves. She opened her notebook to the old page and added a day version beside that night’s scene. Namsangol was the first set on this trip she had shot once by night and once by day.

Walking tours in winter: weather warnings and cold hands

In winter, the first thing to look at before you walk is the weather warnings. If a warning makes it hard to run the tours, all bookings for that day are cancelled together, and this happens as soon as the warning takes effect. The notice gives heatwaves, typhoons, heavy rain and fine dust as examples, and asks you to keep an eye on warnings throughout the day of your booking. It is a programme where you walk outdoors for 2 to 3 hours, so take gloves and warm shoes too. Elena’s hands got so cold walking round Namsangol that she kept putting her pen in and out of her coat pocket.

Rubbing her cold hands, Elena thought ahead to the day she would book Naksan again. On that morning, it wouldn’t be enough to trust the confirmation email from two days before — she would need to open the day’s weather warnings once more as well. She wrote the email two days before and the warnings on the morning side by side on one line of her notebook, like two call sheets before a shoot. At the end of the line she added gloves, in small letters. The notes she had taken with cold hands at Namsangol had come out shakier than usual, after all.

Next time, Naksan with two or more: the scene card Elena rewrote

Before leaving Namsangol, Elena sat on a bench at the edge of the courtyard and went back to the first page of her notebook. “[S#1. Night, city wall path]” had two lines through it. Most night courses had ended in mid-November, and the city wall had not gone ahead because that session stayed at just Elena to the very end. Even so, the one scene of hearing a guide’s voice had been shot today. She looked down at the two crossed-out lines for a long while, then took the cap off her pen.

Below them she wrote a new scene. “[S#1, reshoot. Day, Naksan — Heunginjimun to Hyehwamun Gate, cast of two or more]”. If she comes to Seoul with someone next time, all it takes is to put both names on one booking and apply at least 3 days before the tour. And if she is on her own, she can note down one Namsangol session as a fallback while she waits for the email at 17:00 two days before. Like a director who turns up on set with two versions of the script, Elena wrote those two lines side by side.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Reading “Wait for Confirmation” as a standby call

  Elena wrote “standby” and even drew in camera positions, but it was the kind of wait where you stand by for your co-star.

• 02

  Looking for an English course on the course list

  Elena switched between the two pages, and the same list came up each time.

• 03

  Not turning “17:00 two days before” into a weekday

  Elena only scrambled once the email arrived on Monday evening.

• 04

  Trying to book another course for the same day after the cancellation email

  By Monday evening, bookings for Wednesday had already closed on Sunday.

• 05

  Looking for a night scene on the city wall in December

  Elena’s first line was struck out the moment she opened the December calendar.

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