[Private tour] Seoul highlights with a palace and food market

Excellent Experience

Lee was fantastic tour guide. She is smart, informative, considerate, personable, and flexible. The tour surpassed our expectations. She knows Seoul very well. The entire experience was first rate.

via Viator

An Outstanding Tour with an Exceptional Guide

We had a wonderful afternoon exploring Seoul with Lee of Honey Trail Korea. She was personable, intelligent, considerate, and informative—a real pleasure to spend time with. We saw so much in one afternoon, and her explanations brought the history and character of the places we visited to life. Lee made the tour feel both educational and personal. Her warmth and knowledge made the afternoon especially enjoyable, and we came away with a much richer appreciation of Seoul. We were delighted with the tour and highly recommend Lee to anyone looking for a thoughtful, knowledgeable, personable, and engaging guide.

via Tripadvisor

Lee Changhee is a Talented, Charming Tour Guide--One of the Best Ever.

My wife and I have had many guides by Viator, Tripadvisor and ToursByLocals. Lee is an elite guide. She was wonderful throughout and tailored two different days to exactly what was needed. The first day, she did the broad tour of Seoul--with lots of information about history, geography, the Josean Empire, Hanboks, politics, culture, economics, shopping, arts, parks, religion and city avant garde "hot spots." We like to follow an initial broad tour like this with recommendations for intensive, follow-up adventures on our own--art and history museums, parks and gardens, winding back streets, etc. She provided a complete list for these solo excursions. Then, a week later, she tailored a follow-up tour with a deeper dive into less obvious Seoul highlights. (Because of time spent driving around Korea to Busan, she also texted some driving tips that were incredibly helpful.) As you can discern from this review, Lee was just terrific. She has lived in the U.S. and Canada and thus has a complete grasp of both Korean and English, and she was incredibly prepared and flexible as to what was needed. She is also a world traveler herself (with a recent hike on the Camino Reale and past adventures on Mount Kilimanjaro and in the Himalayas). She is so bright and world-aware, and there was great dynamism and humor in our interactions about sibling position, pharmacogenomics, and in being able to look up (on our phones) diverse information about music from a Korean Rom-Com, investigating the global sculptures of artist Jauma Plensa (who has a piece by the Lotte Tower) and marvel at the range of work by architect Zaha Hadid (who did the amazing Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). The true test of a tour like this is the aftereffect: I am left with a deep respect for Seoul and Korea (and the great tour by Lee that produced many fond memories and laughs and about a thousand photographs.)

Response from the operator: Thank you so much for such a generous review. You were truly a wonderful customer and have become a friend to me. I’m really grateful that I had the chance to be your guide. Honestly, I feel like I learned so much from you during our tours, too. If I have children someday and eventually become a mother and a grandmother, I hope I can be the kind of person you are. I truly mean that. Thanks again for all the kindness you showed me. I hope you can come back to Korea next year. :-) I’d love to see you again! Regards, Lee (@honeytrailkorea)

via Tripadvisor

Seoul with knowledgeable story teller

A guides knowledge is important, but equally important is the guides disposition, and Lee excels abundantly in both criteria. We visited and I in sufficient detail and interest learned about some of Seouls historical highlights/vistas - Jogyesa Temple - King Sejong Statue- Gyeongbokgung Palace (most interesting) - Hanok Village. We then had a Korean BBQ lunch where I interrogated Lee about life in modern Korea , very interesting - I learned a lot. Lee thank you for the excellent few hours we spent together - I would freely recommend your tour guiding services to all. Regards George

Response from the operator: Thank you so much for your kind review, George. I really enjoyed spending the day with you, and thank you for the lunch as well. I hope you and your family have a wonderful trip through the other countries. I also hope they like the little gifts we picked out together. :-) It was a pleasure meeting you, and I’m glad I could share a little bit of Seoul and everyday life in Korea with you. I hope you can come back to Korea with your family someday. Wishing you and your family safe and happy travels! Regards, Lee (@honeytrailkorea)

via Tripadvisor

Eat like a local

The market is not very touristy, and I enjoyed that a lot. With a ton of Korean food options, it’s worth a visit. Lee showed us around and gave a lot of information on different foods as well as the many different grains and vegetables which are sold there. The food at the restaurant was delicious! My personal favorite was the desert…torched marshmallow ice cream! You don’t want to miss out on that one. Overall a great local market experience.

via Tripadvisor