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| YouTubers Dan and Joel take a free guided walking tour around Seoullo 7017, Oct. 8. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government |
City partners with YouTubers to promote free walking tours in Seoul
By Lee Suh-yoon
Strolling through a city with a guide is a hassle-free and effective way to learn about its history and cultural fabric.
Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) runs 37 different walking tours for Korean and foreign visitors ― all free of charge. English, Chinese, and Japanese language tours are regularly offered. Malay-Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese speaking guides are also available on request.
These tours link key sightseeing spots under diverse themes: royal palace history, the independence movement, modern art, traditional markets, restored ecology, architectural history, and even Vatican-approved pilgrimage routes.
Last year, the free walking tours attracted over 146,000 participants, 47 percent of them foreigners. To better promote the tours to the public, especially incoming foreign tourists, the city has decided to partner with YouTubers. The tourism division at the city government recently enlisted the help of seven YouTube channels that offer travel and culture tips on Korea to a six-digit follower base.
MKH (My Korean Husband), a family YouTube channel featuring a Korean-Australian couple and their two-year-old son, recently uploaded a video of their experience with the city's Seoul Guided Walking Tours program on a visit to Gyeongbok Palace. The trip ― specially designated as a barrier-free course and led by an English-speaking guide ― was "informative and engaging," the couple said, despite the fact the family had visited the palace many times in the past.
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| The MKH family pose with their guide at Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul, Oct. 1. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government |
"The guide provided us in-depth knowledge, like why the stones in the palace courtyard were uneven. It was so they wouldn't be too reflective on people's eyes and make people take more care with how they walked in the king's area," Nichola Gwon from MKH told The Korea Times in a phone interview.
In the video titled "Don't make this mistake in Seoul! (How to make the most of your time!)," the couple recommends the tour to visitors navigating Seoul on a tight schedule.
The walking tours take two to three hours on average. The Gyeongbok Palace and Cheong Wa Dae tours are specially designed as barrier-free courses, meaning they are accessible to wheelchair users and families with baby strollers.
"The guide also showed us the easiest path for our stroller," Gwon said.
Dan and Joel, a Korean food and culture channel run by U.K. expats Daniel Bright and Joel Bennett, similarly joined a tour of sites around Seoullo 7017, including a spicy chicken stew restaurant popular with the locals. Seoullo 7017 is an old overpass at the city center that reopened as a garden skywalk in 2017.
"Seoul is a city with strong historical and cultural areas, and these can be enjoyed freely and in a relaxed, engaging way through the tour," the YouTubers told the paper in an email.
Launched in 2003, Seoul Guided Walking Tour has a pool of 234 multilingual guides. Each guide undergoes a three-month field training program to become a licensed "culture and tourism commentator."
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| YouTuber Hoju Sara poses by a street art installation in Chungmuro, Oct. 4. / Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government |
"The biggest advantage of the walking tour is that it allows one to hear about interesting stories associated to a location's history, culture and people ― stories that are commonly not accessible from a tourist's standpoint," Joo Yong-tae, director-general of tourism and sports at the SMG, said in a recent statement. .
The most popular tour site for foreigners is the War Memorial of Korea, followed by Gyeongbok Palace and Bukchon. For those who want to see fall foliage, Naksan City Wall and Seongbuk-dong tours are recommended.
In a recent video of Seoul Guided Walking Tour, Hoju Sara, an Australian expat with 277,000 subscribers on her channel, goes off the beaten path to explore the alleys of Euljiro and Chungmuro, a rising hipster neighborhood in a more industrial part of town.
"There are so many hidden gems in Seoul that even people born and raised in Seoul might not know about," she said following the tour.
Seoul Guided Walking Tours must be booked at least three days in advance through the official website (dobo.visitseoul.net). Only the Namsangol Hanok Village and War Memorial tours require reservations via the respective location's website.
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