Our favourite South Korea tours and excursions

Few countries allow you to experience their traditional culture even while fast asleep! Don’t miss the chance to stay the old-school Korean way, in one of its hanok guesthouses. 

Wooden, tile-roofed and intrinsically East Asian, courtyard homes known as hanok once covered the country, though they’re now vanishingly rare – the vast majority of Koreans now live in apartment blocks. Thankfully, a few hanok neighbourhoods remain, including the Hanok Village in Jeonju, and Hahoe Village, near Andong. The good news for visitors is that all of them have plenty of hanok guesthouses, where you can savour the homely delights of a near-bygone era. This usually extends to sleeping on futon-style bedding (the floors are heated through winter) and eating traditional breakfasts. In Jeonju Hanok Village there’s the added bonus of having some of Korea’s best restaurants on your doorstep, while in Hahoe, you’ll wake up in the calm of the Korean countryside.

Hundreds of wooden buildings once home to royals, with a wall of mountains in the background: the palace of Gyeongbokgung is a fantastic selfie spot. But why not go the whole hog and dress up in some traditional silken clothing for your photos? 

Until recently, hanbok was seen as rather simple when compared to other types of traditional East Asian clothing; neither the fit nor the colours had the beauty of a Vietnamese ao dai or a Japanese kimono. However, Korean designers began to tweak the styles to make them more appealing to modern tastes; nowadays you can’t walk around a Seoul palace without seeing visitors wearing rental versions of these prettier new forms. While more popular with female visitors, there’s plenty of choice for men too, including some terrific hats. 

Your two-hour hanbok experience includes dress-up, basic hairstyling, and an English-speaking photographer who’ll pop well over a hundred shots. Just note that Koreans tend to say “kimchi!” instead of “cheese!”

Korea has more Buddhist temples than you could count in several reincarnated lifetimes –staying at one offers the chance to experience a way of life virtually unchanged in centuries. 

Our temple stay takes place at one of Korea’s more unusual places of worship. Tucked within the forests and fields of the Gyeongsang countryside, Golgulsa is a real stunner, but bizarrely, the monks here mix meditation with martial arts. Don’t expect too many taekwondo kicks, though – sunmudo is a Zen-based martial art form quite in keeping with Buddhist practice. 

Temple stay programmes tend to run to a strict schedule; experiencing the life of a monk, if only for a short while, is the whole point. On day one, you’ll don temple robes and get through some meditation and sunmudo practice before a vegetarian Buddhist dinner. It's early to bed, and early to rise; the next day starts at 5am! After some chanting, meditation and breakfast, there’s time for a tea ceremony and more sunmudo before checking out.

The Demilitarised Zone – or DMZ – is a four-kilometre-wide buffer zone between North and South Korea. There’s palpable tension in the air between these razor-wired borders; created by mutual agreement at the end of the Korean War in 1953, it was dubbed the “scariest place on Earth” by Bill Clinton. 

The DMZ stretches clean across the Korean peninsula, though its focal point is undoubtedly the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom. Here, soldiers from North and South Korea eyeball each other at scarily close range; and if you’re in luck, you may have a chance to step across the border into one of the huts that the two sides use for negotiations. 

On our guided DMZ tours, you’ll also see a mountain observatory, where you can peer through binoculars at the “propaganda village” of Kijong-dong; and tunnels secretly made by North Korea, apparently for a surprise attack on Seoul. Got questions? Rest assured your guide will be able to fill you in on all things DMZ.

Most visitors to Korea come away raving about its food – but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pinch a few of the nation’s culinary secrets and take them back home with you. All that this act of theft takes is a little tuition... 

Our Korean cooking classes take place in the dynamic city of Busan, famed for its beaches and hectic nightlife – and, of course, its fantastic culinary scene. With a plethora of regional specialties, a vast collection of traditional food markets and some of the best seafood in the country, there’s nowhere better to get “hands on” with Korean food culture.  

After your welcome drink and homemade Korean sauce tasting, experienced chefs will give you an in-depth lesson on how to create your own authentic Korean dishes using fresh, seasonal ingredients – with a side of local culture thrown in. Afterwards, you’ll get to try the fruits of your labour – and complimentary recipe cards are included, so you can use your new skills back home.