Seoul Good value
Korean barbecue is usually for two or more people minimum. Gwangjang Market is the classic street food stop. Convenience store food in Korea is genuinely good and very cheap.
Budget travel in South Korea
What a visitor's money does in South Korea: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Mid-range average across 5 guides · 5 is very cheap
Money
South Korean Won (KRW) · 1 EUR = 1558 KRW · 1 USD = 1386 KRW
Myeongdong street exchange booths give better rates than banks or the airport. Korea is heavily cashless — a card and a T-money transit card cover almost everything.
ATMs
Avoid: domestic-only machines, which will refuse a foreign card
Use: ATMs marked "Global" at KB, Shinhan and Woori, convenience store machines
Look for the word Global on the machine before queueing.
Getting around
A short ride in Seoul: ₩5,000–12,000 across town — cheap
From the airport: Incheon to central Seoul ₩60,000–90,000, against ₩4,500 on the AREX
The same metered taxis. Kakao T saves standing in the cold.
City by city, cheapest first
Busan Mid-range
Busan is a seafood city and dwaeji gukbap — pork and rice soup — is its own dish, eaten at any hour. Ssiat hotteok, a seed-stuffed pancake, is the street food at Nampo-dong. At Jagalchi you choose the fish downstairs and eat it upstairs, usually raw and then the bones in a soup.
Jeju Mid-range
Black pork barbecue, abalone porridge, and hairtail fish grilled whole. The haenyeo sell what they dive straight from the rocks at Seongsan — sea urchin and conch, eaten there.
Seoraksan & Sokcho Mid-range
Sokcho eats raw fish and squid. Abai sundae — stuffed squid — is the local dish, and the market sells it hot. Dakgangjeong, sweet fried chicken, is queued for at Jungang market.
Gyeongju Expensive
Ssambap — a table of small dishes wrapped in leaves — is the local speciality, and Gyeongju bread, a red-bean pastry, is what everybody takes home.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
The guides in South Korea
SeoulSouth KoreaPalaces, street food, and relentless energy
BusanSouth KoreaKorea’s port city: beaches in the middle of it, the largest fish market in the country, and a hillside village painted every colour
JejuSouth KoreaA volcanic island of black rock and green tea, with women who have dived for shellfish for centuries
GyeongjuSouth KoreaA thousand years of Silla capital spread through a small city, with royal tombs rising out of the parks
Seoraksan & SokchoSouth KoreaGranite spires and autumn colour two hours from Seoul, with a fishing port and a cable car below them