The trip became a hybrid of a number of many travel blogs. Here's my contribution to the abundance of South Korean content available. It'll tell you much of the same thing but in a different order.
The flight landed at around 8:30pm. Then it took some time to figure out how to catch a train from Incheon to Seoul.
Here's what I wish I knew ahead of time for both the train journey form the airport, and in general.
A reminder to download the NAVER Map app ahead of time so you know which station to swap at (probably Seoul Station), and which line to jump on from there.
Hotel: The Amid - check out the Amid website here
The Amid Hotel is nice enough at a good rate. It's nothing too fancy, plus with a café in the lobby and it's great location, the Amid is a good base.
DAY 1: Walking tour of XXXXX
DAY 2: Walking tour of XXXXX
DAY 3: Walking tour of XXXXX
DAY 4: DMZ Tour
The DMZ Tour was with VIP Travel. Yes, the website has 2x Vs which makes it look dodgy, but our experience was fairly good.
The tour we want on was the DMZ Half Day Tour. The better option (JSA Tour) was not possible. An American Tourist was on the JSA Tour (with another provider, apparently). He decided to bolt from the tour into the DMZ. He got shot by North Korea. North Korea killed a man, and that man killed JSA Tours. They've been banned until the South Korean government permits them again.
If the JSA Tour is available when you go, do that instead. And apparently you will need to book well in advance so you can be vetted.
For the DMZ Half Day Tour, we met at a train station at 6:40am. Thankfully, only 1 stop away from our hotel. (Not a hotel pickup as expected.)
Why so early?
The DMZ is run by the military, so whilst the whole thing is great tourism, they really don't care. When we went, they were only letting 15 busses PER DAY into the area, and it's first come, first serve. We only found this out at like... midday.
So should you do the shitter of the DMZ Tours?
There's no reason not to.
On the drive to the DMZ, the tour guide gave us an overview of South and North Korea, the Korean War and WHY the DMZ and countries exist. You could google this info.
At the DMZ, there's a tourist info centre where the tour guide buys tickets and you can grab food and coffee, and wander around. The tour guide shared some on-location info, which was nice, but again, probably Google-able. We had free time but there isn't a whole lot you can do there.
You'll see that you can take a Gondola Tour over the river into a civilian controlled area. Eh. If you love the US involvement, do it. There's a museum of sorts on the other side of the river that bangs on about how the US soldiers were heroes. Or save yourself 10 bucks.
This also made us 5 minutes late for the bus journey into the actual DMZ. Well, the fault was ours, but we didn't know the vital info of 15 busses etc.
Next, into the civilian controlled area, where there are South Korean farmers who work under strict conditions. To get in, the Military Police will check your passport. Once we were through, we went to an observation point where you can actually see North Korea. There are binoculars for a closer look at the buildings and for the authentic people in a zoo experience.
Then to a tunnel that North Korea dug in an attempt to infiltrate the South. You get to go in a couple of hundred metres.
Then to a local store which is definitely a tourist trap and where you might find yourself being forced to buy things. We weren't forced to buy anything, nor did we buy anything.
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