How I Traveled Cheap to Incheon and Seoul, Korea for Free on a Layover [Travel Cheap]
Before you read any further, I want to clarify this trip was only a 23 hour layover. That’s plenty of time to see some beautiful places in a country but probably not enough time to really travel the country. That being said, this post discusses how I was able to travel cheap to Korea for free on a [planned] layover.
I always start with the big 3 expenses in traveling. To travel for cheap, you’ll need to save on Flights, Accommodation, and Transportation. The better deal you’re able to find for all 3, the more money you’ll be able to save.
Flights:
One of the best ways to do a quick visit of a country is by adding in an extended layover. In this case, I was flying to Asia for a work and family visit trip.
But I had wanted to visit Korea and just see the place. So I decided to find a flight via Google Flights that would have a long enough layover in Korea.
Accommodation:
The awesome thing about overnight layovers, particularly in Asia and particularly if you’re flying with an Asian Airline, is they’ll usually provide a free hotel if your layover is over a certain number of hours.
In this case, they provided a free night stay at a nice 4 star hotel. It included a 5 star breakfast buffet also!
Note that I changed my return flight to February; hence the February check-in date in case you were wondering.
Transportation:
Transportation in Korea is incredible. The trains are all well organized, there’s shuttle service to and from airport, and you can also take the award winning tour buses that leave from the airport.
I didn’t find anybody who spoke English but I still got around perfectly fine. I even took the train from Incheon to Seoul for a day visit!
Public transportation does require a bit of research on sites like WikiTravel or TripAdvisor. Or if you need further guidance, feel free to contact me.
Things to Do:
Obviously since it was only a layover, I didn’t have a whole lot of time. But I felt I had just the right amount of time to get a taste of the country. You’ll notice most of my photos are food pictures.
If you had more time than I did, I’d suggest doing a quick TripAdvisor search for “things to do”.
Below are a few photos from my layover trip to Korea.
What are some of your tips for traveling cheap to Korea?
