Trip motivation
In July 2023, our family visited Seoul, South Korea! This has been at the top of our family wish list for a few years. In the last few years, k-drama watching for Jenn has made it jump higher on the list. We visited in late July and combined this trip with a Hawaii visit and 5 days in Japan. We visited Asia previously (Tokyo 2017) but this was the first time the family visited Korea. Traveling internationally with kids can be daunting but with a little preparation and research and tips from other travelers, we had a successful trip!
This post covers our flights, hotel, itinerary, planning process, and international logistics such as using the subway, getting a phone card, and finding budget restaurants.
Read all of our 2023 Korea/Japan posts at the following links:
- Seoul, South Korea: Flights, Logistics, and Hotel Info
- Seoul Day 1: Myeongdong, Namsangol Hanok, Seoul Tower
- Seoul Day 2: Hanbok rental, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Gwanham square, Hongdae
- Seoul Day 3: Gangnam Area, COEX Aquarium, Myeongdong Night Market
- Kyoto, Japan: Flights, Logistics, and Hotel Info
- Kyoto Day 1: Higashiyama Temples: Maruyama Park, Yasaka Shrine, Kiyozdemeru
- Osaka: Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan and Osaka Dotonbori
- Kyoto Day 2: Arashiyama River Cruise, Monkey Park, Bamboo Gardens,
- Kyoto Day 3:Aeon Mall, Nishiki Market, Pokemon Center,Gion Matsuri Gallery
- Kyoto Day 4: East Kyoto Temples: Philosophers Path, Nanzeji Temple
Planning our Itinerary
I love planning trips, especially through well-traveled places where there’s a ton of information to read through and make plans for. Many online blogs were really helpful! One tip for traveling with kids is take a 3-day best of guide and cut out half of it to make it actually realistic. When taking trips with kids, a key to enjoying the trip is really spending time on the planning process. That’s not to say that every minute is planned but we don’t want to waste time looking up times or directions and not having a plan. We also made sure to add some sights that we as a family were interested in and asked for advice from friends who had made a similar trip. We spent 4 nights in Seoul and had 3 full days of exploring.
Several months before, I sketched out our plan in excel and on google maps with a balance of activities, rest time, food, rest, and fun. We made sure to research how far areas were and tried to schedule several anchor points with a few optional activities so we didn’t overstuff our schedule.
Overview
Day 0: Arrival evening, settle into hotel
Other reconmmend spots we’ll save for next time
- Gwangjang market
- Additional palaces
- Han River Boat cruise
- Cafe hopping in Bukchon, Insadong, and Ikseodong neighborhoods
- DMZ tour
- Art, Science, and Children museums
- Day trip to Nami Island
- Amusement parks Everland, Lotte World
- Other parts of Korea: Busan, Jeju
Flying to Seoul
Prior to this portion of our trip, we spent some time in Hawaii visiting family. We were able book cash flights to Seoul Non-stop on Hawaiian Airlines. Our flights were 10 hours and the one-way flights were $650 each.
We use miles for a lot of trips and we did use miles for our Japan to Nashville portion. Its not all or nothing. We were able to save money in other ways on this trip and decided to pay cash for this portion. We used the Chase Sapphire Reserve to get more points for our next trip! See more detailed tips on using points and miles here.
Long flight tips:
Sleeping on planes West to East:
- Plan to sleep! For the overnight red-eye flight, we emphasized that after dinner service, everyone was going to try and get some sleep. I gave each kid a dose of melatonin and they passed out pretty immediately. We packed these cheap pillows from Amazon (They came with eye masks!).
- On arrival, get outside and try to limit naps so you can readjust.
- For more on our favorite activities and tips for flying, see our post here.
Headphones
Melatonin
Airplane pillows
Activities for long flights East to West
- On the long flight, the kids were happy playing with the personal screen and alternating between coloring, reading, tv, games, and snacks. Ellie has been loving the Magic Treehouse books and when they were little, they used to love activities in the Magic Ink and small play pack coloring books (Amazon links). We have one Nintendo Switch that the kids love.
- For more on our favorite activities and tips for flying, see our post here.
Grand Hyatt Seoul- Itaewon
We had a wonderful stay at the Grand Hyatt Seoul. We booked a basic room using cash ($250/night) and used a suite upgrade award (from status) to get a suite with a separate living space for the kids. We used our Hyatt credit card to get points for future Hyatt stays. You can also use points from this stay. You can earn Hyatt points from Hyatt stays, the Hyatt credit card and Chase points which can be transferred to Hyatt. Learn more about points here.
We love having suites on hotel stays. Some space to spread out is lovely. We even set up the kids TV with the nintendo switch! For more on sleeping on vacations, see this post here. In addition to having the suite upgrade, our Hyatt globalist status gave us some cool perks. The hotel was gorgeous with a beautiful pool. There was a kids area (not drop-off) and spa that we didn’t take advantage of on this trip. Everyone was so kind and we were received a welcome gift of wine, and pastries along with a hand-written note.
The hotel was grand (haha get it because its the Grand Hyatt) and all team members spoke excellent English and were very willing to help us. The location was about a 5 minute walk to some restaurants and $5-$10 taxi rides to areas of interest.
Due to our status, we had access to a large club with breakfast, snacks, and evening meals included as part of the rate. This buffet breakfast was a dream. Noodles, entrees, omelets, all the things. Note that the evening hors d’oeuvres comes with unlimited alcohol but is restricted to children 13+. We left the kids in the hotel room playing switch… Shhh
Transportation in Seoul
From the Seoul Airport, we took a taxi to our hotel. It was a little pricey at around $75 but worth it to not have to deal with luggage and trains.
In Seoul, we mapped destinations using naver maps and compared the time/cost/effort to use a taxi, train, bus, or walk. For the most part, we took taxis that were $5-$20 depending on the distance. The kakao taxi app was fantastic! We often got taxis in less than 1 minute, although there was a strong language barrier and we had to know how to pull up our destination in Korean. If you have little ones, it might be harder to use a taxi due to the car seat. If you plan on using a stroller on the subway, many have elevators, but be prepared to fold it and carry up stairs.
Eating in Seoul
Our hotel came with free breakfast, and we enjoyed starting the day filling up with omelets, noodles, and rice dishes. During the day, we tried to balance quick meals with sit-down meals. We didn’t do any true gourmet fancy meals but did have some excellent food. A few restaurants had kids menus or we would get entrees to share. We always say trips are for eating. While in Korea, we ate a wide variety of yummy foods including Bibimbap, bulgogi, tteokbokki, fried pork cutlet, Bingsu, korean fried chicken and more! There are so many delicious things to eat in Korea. If you are ever in Korea, be sure to try some of these dishes. You will not be disappointed!
When walking around between stops, we often stopped at convenience stores for drinks and snacks. 7-eleven is great!
Other International Logistics
Passport: Before you fly internationally, check those expiration dates on your passports! Note that some countries require your passport to valid for 3-6 months after your flight
Phone/Internet Have you heard of an e-sim card? Prior to leaving Hawaii, we set up both our phones with electronic sim cards from Korea SIM For $20 each, we had a phone with data and a number that received calls and texts (Needed to set up kakao taxi) The phone switched to the international sim without needing to stop by a store to physically put a sim in.
Language: We worked with the kids to know basic greetings and that’s about it. We did our best to be polite and worked with the kids to say, “Hello good morning, Excuse me. Do you speak English?” instead of just rudely speaking English to people. Most of the people we interacted with at the airport, hotel and restaurants spoke very good English. What we have found is very helpful from our other international travels is the Google translate and papago app. You can type in English and show the Korean translation or speak it.
Currency Exchange We stopped at a bank and used our bank debit card to pull out the equivalent of $100 for some won. We really didn’t need much throughout this portion of the trip as most places took credit card.
More Asia 2023 Posts
Read all of our 2023 Korea/Japan posts at the following links:
- Seoul, South Korea: Flights, Logistics, and Hotel Info
- Seoul Day 1: Myeongdong, Namsangol Hanok, Seoul Tower
- Seoul Day 2: Hanbok rental, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Gwanham square, Hongdae
- Seoul Day 3: Gangnam Area, COEX Aquarium, Myeongdong Night Market
- Kyoto, Japan: Flights, Logistics, and Hotel Info
- Kyoto Day 1: Higashiyama Temples: Maruyama Park, Yasaka Shrine, Kiyozdemeru
- Osaka: Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan and Osaka Dotonbori
- Kyoto Day 2: Arashiyama River Cruise, Monkey Park, Bamboo Gardens,
- Kyoto Day 3:Aeon Mall, Nishiki Market, Pokemon Center,Gion Matsuri Gallery
- Kyoto Day 4: East Kyoto Temples: Philosophers Path, Nanzeji Temple
