[UPDATED] SOUTH KOREA 2017: Guesthouses in Seoul

EDIT: Updated March 2018

Since I began traveling mid-budget, I rarely stay at hotels. I’ve never stayed in a hotel in Seoul. But I loved staying at guesthouses.

Guesthouses, generally, gives you a feeling of community, like a home away from home – but not quite (depending on your perspective of home, I dare say). To begin with, I’ve stayed at three different guesthouses whenever I’m in town. This is because I still want to explore staying at different parts of town and find out which is the best neighborhood for me.

For this post, I’ll discuss each guesthouse based on the following criteria: proximity to nearest subway station, proximity to Airport Limousine Bus stop, breakfast, reception, toilet/bath, space, price, facility, night life, and shopping. These are the ten points I look at when choosing a hostel or guesthouse in general. This can be your starting point in choosing your guesthouse in Seoul. Or even in other cities.

To make comparing objective, I’ll give one (1) point if it’s positive, and zero (0) if it’s negative, and point five (0.5) if there’s both positive and negative, based on my experience. I will also give explanation as necessary.

So let’s get right down to each of them.

SOUTH KOREA 2015 Day 1: Seoul Touchdown, MyeongDong, and N Seoul Tower

We arrived after lunch in Incheon airport. We changed Pesos and Dollars at the airport because I couldn’t find any good exchange rate in the Philippines and we were running out of time. Also, I needed cash to pay the guesthouse upon our check-in. And the Airport Limousine only takes cash, I believe. I also bought T Money at the convenience store and look what they gave us!

Line T-Money!