This weekend, Leesan, Rufus and I set out to try and review the Seoul City Tour Bus. We usually review locations out of Seoul for our Wow Korea trips, so traveling within Seoul was a pretty new experience for us as well.
For the Seoul City Bus, there are a total of 5 courses as follows, as well as the prices (adult/children) and operating hours. Please click on the links to find the course map and attractions details:
- Downtown Palace Course (22 stops) 12,000/10,000won 9am-6pm (30m interval)
- Paranoma Course (16 stops) 15,000/10,000won 930am-5pm (45m interval)
- Night Course (Single Decker/9 attractions) 12,000/7,000won 730pm (8pm in Jul/Aug)
- Night Course (Double Decker & Trolley Bus/11 attractions) 7,000/5,000won 8pm
- Gangnam City Tour Bus (21 stops) 5,000/3,000won 1020am-445pm (35m-1h interval)
Please note that City Tour Buses do not operate on Mondays.
We did the Seoul Paranoma Course + Gangnam City Tour combination and got a 2,000won discount off the Gangnam City Tour Bus. So we paid a total of 18,000won for both tour buses. Note that course 1, 2 and 5 are hop-on-hop-off, but the night courses 3 and 4 are non-stop, which means you just sit on the bus while it goes past the attractions.
The first stop of the Downtown Palace and Paranoma Course is at Gwanghwamun Station, Exit 6. There is a City Tour Bus booth at Gwanghwamun station where you can purchase the tickets for all 5 courses and some discounted tickets for attractions like Namsan Tower Cable Car and Observatory. However, you can also purchase the tickets from the bus driver directly from any stop. We boarded the Paranoma Bus from Myeongdong Station (Exit 2).
The first bus that came was a trolley bus! Really pretty and there were audio guides at every seat. We alighted at Namsan Cable Car station 2 stops later.
The return ticket for the cable car cost 8,500won.
We also bought tickets to both the observatory and Hello Kitty Island (Hello Kitty Package) for a total of 12,500won. Tickets to just the observatory cost 10,000won.
I swear this is the cutest place ever alive and you should definitely visit if you are a Sanrio fan! We died of cuteness overload.
After touring Namsan, we decided it was time for lunch. Took the cable car down and walked about 10 minutes to the heart of Myeongdong.
The portion was okay for the price, but we added 3 servings of fried rice (그냥 볶음밥) at 2,000 each portion and it was so good and filling.
After lunch we went back to Myeongdong Station and boarded the Paranoma Course bus again. This time heading for Gangnam! The bus that came was one with an open top at the end. No audio guides at seats for this bus though.
Gangnam is a really trendy area where Seoulites hangout on their free time. Lots of good food and some shopping here. Also the inspiration for the worldwide hit Gangnam Style by PSY.
From the Paranoma Course, it is possible to transfer to the Gangnam City Tour Bus at the Gangnam stop. We got our tickets from the ticket booth after getting down at the Gangnam stop from the Paranoma course. Showed our Paranoma course tickets and got a discount.
If you want to go for the Gangnam City Tour Bus directly, this booth is located about 100m in front of Gangnam Station Subway Line 2, Exit 11. The bus departs here. Note that the Gangnam City Tour Bus takes about 1.5hour to finish the entire course and come back to Gangnam station. So do plan your time wisely if you are thinking of getting back onto the Paranoma Course bus, the last bus leaves at 5pm from Gangnam station.
Some of the stops for the Gangnam City Tour Bus includes the Bongeunsa Temple, Lotte World Tower 123 Observatory (also known as Seoul Sky Observatory), Lotte World Premium Tower, Olympic Park, Apgujeong Rodeo Street, Garosu-gil, Somsevit (Hangang River).
I’ll review the Seoul Sky Observatory soon, so keep a lookout for it!
Somesevit is a cluster of 3 man-made islands at the Hangang River. Great for some summer breeze and for watching the sunset!
In our ideal plan for the tour, we will make it back for the last bus of the Paranoma Course that departs from Gangnam station and alight at Edae/Hongdae for some shopping and have dinner.
What we realised is that the buses do not run late into the evening and transferring between both the Paranoma Course and Gangnam Course can be very rushed. Hence, we would recommend only one course per day, or if you want to cover both courses, plan your stops to be minimum, 1 or 2 stops per course only. Note that the buses also go in only one direction. Some of the other tourists on the buses did not alight at all and just sat on the bus for the scenery.
This is a great way to see the entire of Seoul in a day, but we literally mean just viewing. Perfect if you just want a relaxing ride without walking too much. If you are planning for shopping, and going around to try food, maybe the subway will be more convenient as you will not have to match the bus schedule.
That concludes our Seoul City Tour Bus journey around Seoul! 2 observatories in a day was pretty amazing and overwhelming, but good experiences that I would recommend you to try just once! ^^
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