Présente l'histoire, la culture, le bouddhisme, le milieu naturel et la gastronomie du pays. Propose pour visiter Séoul, les grandes régions de la Corée du Sud, ainsi que la Corée du Nord : des renseignements pratiques, des suggestions de visites et une sélection d'adresses (hôtels, restaurants, loisirs, etc.).
I read this because I plan on holidaying in Seoul in October of this year (2017) and plan to live and work there in 2019 as an English teacher. I'm not going to give this a rating, but it got me so excited to visit so many places and learn new things! The section on Korea's history in the back was also really helpful and interesting!
Nice because it cuts both ways!: This is a very complete guide, as they come from LP. Many famous and not so famous places are described in detail and in 99% of the cases accurately,too. Nice if you want to know where other foreigners hang out in Korea. Next thing is to decide wether you want to meet them or avoid them...
Interestingly they did not mention Seoul zoo at all. Also the maps might be bigger. But they had very interesting articles in the last 100 pages about culture, food, history, language and traveling. I would have liked to see also hangeul reading instruction and spelling, but these can probably be seen also online elsewhere.
Many important sites are missing - e.g. many significant, large and beautiful Unesco World Heritage Sites. Many sites have pointless ChatGPT like descriptions. The guide also contains irrelevant information - e.g. wasting space for restaurants in the Tripadvisor / Google Maps / etc. world.
I'm just going to say it: Busan, a city comprable in size to Chicago, gets done dirty in this. I understand that when you're tacking the best of the best of an entire nation things need to get left on the cuttingroom floor. However compare Korea's guide to the Japan or Italy guide (both of which I own in various editions) and you can see how skimped over Korea's is in comparison. With South Korean pop culture on a continous meteoric rise it would behouve of Lonely Planet to revamp and beef up this entry to their catalougue. I might trim that fat that is the section on North Korea (it's a preset tour with no deviations, you can say that in less than 10 pages) and give more room to the cities and sites travelers are free to roam in SK.
I found this excellent book very helpful before , during , and after my recent trip to Korea. It helped me plan my trip, and I referred to it frequently during my travels. The detailed travel guide lives up to its famous name. It's divided into chapters that discuss, in detail, each different geographical area of Korea, including an extensive guide to the city of Seoul. It includes: pictures and maps, helpful hints about cuisine, transportation, and tidbits about cultural norms and expectations; a simple phrase section, as well as an invaluable summary of important historical events and locations. I would recommend it to anyone considering a trip to Korea.
Got it in July 2025 to plan our holiday in Korea, and the book is disappointing. It has no ready-made itineraries (so you have to ask ChatGPT or figure out yourself which places are close to each other, e.g. in Seoul) and it doesn’t include all usual must-see places recommended by other sources. Instead, it lists many spots with not good reviews (cafes and restaurants with hardly any reviews on Google Maps). I think they try to spread people out so not everyone goes to the same places, but for a first visit I want to see the must-sees. I ended up having to research every single place online additionally. No idea why we even bought this book.
Well written guide book with something for everyone. Since I will be living in Korea for a few years, I found myself color coding "whimsical" sites, historical sites, nature must sees, and foods to try. I took notes in the margins about seasons to go to certain places, etc. This book has it all, and had been updated to 2027 for coming events!
Inspired by “The Comeback.” A well-written and enthusiastic overview about a fascinating country with a long, epic history. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of its history with where it is now.
I bought this book to prepare for my trip to South Korea. I knew next to nothing about Korea before reading this book, as I never watched Korean dramas or listen to K-pop. But after finishing this book, I really felt that I leaned a lot, and understand the country better. This book has some astounding and colourful pictures. I would like more of the pictures so as to get a better idea of the locations introduced, but logistically that would be difficult since this is supposed to be a tour guide book you bring along in your travels. The book starts off with 13 top experiences to have in South Korea, which provides a great start to pick things to do there. I also like how they created lists of places to go according to your preferences - traditional architectures, crafts and shopping, outdoor activities, or culinary experiences. After simple introductions, the book goes into detail about unique places to go, sorted by provinces. Included are suggestions of accommodation and places to eat, ranked by affordability so that either budget or extravagant, there is something for everyone. The book also listed events by month, and a list of dishes commonly found there, so I learned there is a lot more to Korean food than kimchi and barbecue. At the back, you can find a list of romanized common phrases that would be really useful there. With that book in hand, you would not have any problems communicating for simple things such as asking for the location of the nearest toilet. What I like about this book is that not only does it have guides on South Korea, but it also present important information on North Korea, a place people rarely get the chance to visit. When in North Korea, it is immensely important to know what you can and cannot do. They are very particular when it came to some of the things. It even tells the history of North Korea and how it became so secluded. I find all these really fascinating, even though I am not planning to go there. The major flaw of this book was that it absolutely did not fit with what Asian youngsters are looking for when they visit South Korea. It is more suited for Western backpackers or families with children. People my age are more interested in popular locations from the latest K dramas, or where to get all those unique desserts and street food that are all the rage right now. We are less concerned with which temple is the best for meditation, nor do we like to visit museums unless it gets us out of school.
Update after travelling: I'm downgrading this to 2 stars, travelling in Korea was far more difficult than I'd anticipated, and this book didn't help me deal with the difficulties, and didn't even warn me about them! It's so lucky that I watched so many tiktoks about travelling in Korea, they are what taught me about things that would make travelling there both easier and more fun! LP's time is over, I don't think I'll pay for another LP ever again -they are informative enough that I'll use copies I find on Libby and Kindle Unlimited, but not enough for me to pay $20+.
Original review: This seems to me much the same as other LP guides - that's a good thing, some LP guides are switching to a terrible new format (see my review of LP Japan for more) - which is to say that it seems useful but I won't know for sure until I actually go to Korea, I will update this review on my return
Unfortunately I didn't get to use this book nearly as much as I had hoped while living in Korea! I expected to spend all my free time traveling around the country. While I did get a bit of travel in, the majority of it was with a soccer team and thus sightseeing wasn't high up on our priority list!
Even so, I was able to use the book for a few out of Seoul adventures, most notably a week on the enigmatic island of Jeju!
The Jeju part of the book was incredibly useful as much of the local literature on the island is published in Korean only!
Again, LP stands out to me with regards to lodging and maps, two things that are very important to me when traveling!
Another day, another perfectly serviceable entry in the Lonely Planet series.
This edition had a section on North Korea too, which is pretty niche, but I guess it doesn't warrant its own book, and thus this edition can cover the whole peninsula. Perhaps it's aspirational?
As usual, I enjoy the sections on history and culture in the back. I felt that Seoul was pretty well covered, but other areas seemed a bit lacklustre. Our trip took us south to Busan during BIFF 2022, and we had to rely on other sources to really get a feel for the place, which was a shame because Busan was great!
Three stars as usual - not sure it would ever score more, who 'really likes' a travel guide?
My copy is the 9th edition, February 2013 I used this guide to plan most of our 2 week trip around South Korea in November 2014. Some of the info is outdated (especially prices have all gone up it seems), and as we had a Korail train pass I would have preferred more info on train times (a lot of info on bus times, hardly any trains). The restaurants we tried from the guide were spot on. And as always with LP, I really liked the little blurbs (in the blue boxes) with background info.
Yeah, well I liked this one for the history and context it gave me in understanding and touring around Korea. I really love this country. This particular book has earned a revered place as a bathroom book for a many months. So if you ever see it on my shelf, don't touch it. I'm just kind of "moseying" through it randomly.
Gave me a good overview of Korea's history and understanding traditions. A bit more subjective than necessary, which has its pros and cons, but overall an informative read. Make sure you will be visiting one of the cities the book considers before you purchase.
I suppose this is better than nothing, but it's not updated well, and there's not that much in Korea anyway. The internet would be just or more useful.
I've used Lonely Planet guides plenty of times, but this one is dissapointing.
I am preparing for my third trip to Korea as a chaperone. Reading the guidebook after having been there actually helped me understand a lot of what I had seen, and the listing of most sites in hangul as well as English helped me learn to at least sound out hangul words.
Just getting ready for my trip to Korea in 2 weeks! So far this book is really good. I can't stop reading and looking for things to do and food to eat.