As an exchange student spending a semester in South Korea, being able to get around easily is very important to me. I want to explore new places and travel to cities across the country with my friends. However, since I don’t have an international driver’s license or access to a car here, you can imagine how difficult it would be to make the most of my time abroad without an efficient transportation system. Thankfully, South Korea has an excellent public transportation system that makes travel fairly easy.
In my experience, the most common ways to get around Seoul are by bus and subway. With either option, or a combination of the two, you can reach almost anywhere in the city. Cash is generally not accepted for bus/subway fares, so instead, we use a transportation card called T-money, which can be purchased at convenience stores and topped up with cash as needed. One fun fact about South Korea is that Google Maps does not work very well here. Its accuracy is not great and it may lead you to the wrong address. Instead, many Koreans use popular navigation apps such as Naver Map and KakaoMap. Both work similarly to Google Maps and give you the routes to your destination. It took me a little while to get used to them during my first week abroad, but I now find them quite easy to use.
