A Private Journey Through South Korea
Ancient Palaces & Coastal Cities – Private South Korea Tour
This private South Korea tour connects Seoul, Gyeongju, and Busan over nine days, combining royal palaces, ancient history, and life along Korea’s southern coast.
Seoul doesn’t ease you in. A 600-year-old palace sits behind a six-lane highway, and the locals walk past without looking up. Three hours south on the KTX, Busan greets you with salt air and the noise of Jagalchi Fish Market as it comes to life each morning. Then there’s Gyeongju, where royal burial mounds from a thousand years ago sit beside cafés, and no one finds that strange.
Nine days. Three cities. Most visitors arrive expecting Seoul to be the highlight. Many leave talking about Gyeongju.
Tour Highlights
- Gyeongbokgung Palace, 57 buildings set against Bugaksan Mountain, and a royal guard ceremony that has run on schedule for centuries.
- The DMZ: a tunnel dug 73 metres underground, and a bridge where more than 12,000 prisoners of war once crossed to the South.
- Cross the peninsula by KTX at speeds of up to 325km/h. Put your phone down for the mountain section.
- Gyeongju: a 6th-century temple, a stone Buddha catching the first light of dawn, and royal burial mounds rising unexpectedly from the middle of the city.
- Busan’s fish market before the crowds arrive, a hillside village still very much lived in, and a temple built directly on the rocks above the sea.