Six N Seoul Tower tickets and tours, reviewed and ranked
Two of the six things on this page include the round-trip cable car and leave observatory admission out, and one of those two is the most-booked product in the whole set. That is the single most expensive misunderstanding available to anyone booking a trip up Namsan, so I have put it at the top rather than in a footnote. I ranked these on what the money actually buys first, the rating second, and the number of people standing behind that rating third. Two of them I would not buy at all, and I say which ones and why further down.
The six, in the order I would book them
Gyeongbok Palace, N Tower & Local Market City Tour
Costs less than the combo ticket and includes more: the round-trip cable car, observatory admission, a licensed guide, transport and a palace. The catch is that it is a whole day on somebody else’s schedule.
from $26Read the full review ›
N Seoul Tower Observatory & Cable Car Combo Ticket
Cable car up, observatory admission, nothing else, no group. You collect the ticket in person in Myeongdong first, and that detour is what reviewers talk about more than the view.
from $33Read the full review ›
N Seoul Tower Observatory Entry Ticket
Deck admission and nothing else. Put it with the 1,100-won shuttle bus and it is the cheapest way to stand on the observation deck. Lowest rated of the six, and I think the number is fair rather than damning.
from $20Read the full review ›
Seoul Highlights: Gyeongbok Palace, Insadong & N Seoul Tower
The most-reviewed product here and a good day out, but it includes the cable car and not observatory admission. Book it expecting to go up the tower and you will be queuing at the ticket hall with your wallet out.
from $26Read the full review ›
Gyeongbokgung Palace, Namsan Park & More Private Tour
Priced per group of up to ten, which is roughly $42 a head at full capacity and an entirely different number from the one on the card. Attraction tickets are not included. Two reviews so far.
from $422Read the full review ›
N Seoul Tower & Myeongdong Night Tour
A guided evening walk with a one-way cable car and no observatory admission, at the highest per-person price here, on the strength of one review. I walk most of this route for nothing.
from $98Read the full review ›How I ranked them, and on what
First test: what does the money buy against what a visitor thinks it buys. Almost everyone reading this wants to know whether they will end up on the observation deck, so a product that includes admission ranks above one that does not, regardless of how well it is rated as a day out. Second test: the rating. Third: how many people are behind it, because 4.8 from 119 reviews and 4.7 from 874 are not the same kind of number and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Fourth, and it only ever breaks ties: what it costs.
That order is why the day tour sits at the top and the most-reviewed product sits fourth. The city tour is $26 and includes the round-trip cable car and observatory admission and a guide and a palace. The combo ticket is $33 and includes the cable car and the observatory and nothing else. A guided day out is roughly a fifth cheaper than the ticket on its own, which is the sort of thing that makes you check the listing twice. I checked it twice. The arithmetic is laid out at what it costs and the six are compared side by side at all tickets and tours.
Ratings, review counts and prices here are GetYourGuide’s own figures at the time of writing, copied across without rounding. Every price is a “from” figure and the booking widget re-prices by date, party size and the option you pick, so read them as the shape of the market rather than a quote. I never name the operator behind a listing. I do name guides, because reviewers on two of these products name them constantly and that turns out to be the most useful pattern in the set.
The two I would not buy
The night tour, first. It is the highest per-person price on this page. It has one review. The cable car is one-way, observatory admission is not included, and the guided walk covers Namsan Park and Myeongdong after dark, which is a route I do on foot most weeks for the cost of nothing. A single five-star review is not evidence, it is one person’s good evening, and I am not going to dress it up as a track record. If the evening is what you want, the argument for going up after sunset is at day or night and the walking routes are at walking up Namsan.
The Seoul Highlights day tour, second, and only for one reason: it does not include observatory admission. As a guided day covering Gyeongbokgung, the folk museum, a hanok village and a cable car ride, it is clearly good, and 874 reviews at 4.7 is by a distance the largest body of evidence here. But its title has “N Seoul Tower” in it and people read that as going up the tower. It means going to the tower. If the deck is the reason you are booking anything, buy something else.
What none of these can sell you, because it is already free
The summit plaza, the love-lock terraces, the Palgakjeong pavilion area and every viewpoint outside the tower’s paid levels cost nothing and are open to anyone who gets up the hill. No ticket on this page changes that, and none of them can charge you for it. What admission buys is roughly 130 metres of extra height behind glass, which on a clear evening is excellent and on a hazy afternoon is worse than the terrace you just walked past. Check the air quality before you commit. The free half of the hill is set out at what is free at the top, and whether the paid half earns its money is argued at is it worth going up.
Frequently asked questions
Which N Seoul Tower ticket should I buy?
If you can give up a day, the Gyeongbok Palace and N Tower city tour at $26 includes the round-trip cable car and observatory admission and costs less than the ticket that includes only those two things. If you want an hour at the tower and no group, the combo ticket at $33 is the straightforward answer. Both are compared at all tickets and tours.
Do all of these include going up the observatory?
No, and this is the thing to check before you pay. The Seoul Highlights tour includes the round-trip cable car but excludes observatory admission, the night tour excludes it as well, and the private tour does not include attraction tickets of any kind. Only the combo ticket, the city tour and the deck-only ticket get you through the turnstile.
Are the low review counts a problem?
On two of them, yes, and I flag it on every page where it applies. The night tour has one review and the private tour has two, so neither has anything you could call a track record. The city tour has 119, which is a real base but a small one; the combo ticket has 379 and the Seoul Highlights tour has 874. I would not book the night tour on one person’s evening, and I say so on its review.
Are these reviews independent?
Yes. I am not the tower, not its operator and not a tour company, and I sell nothing. Booking links go to GetYourGuide and earn me a small commission at no cost to you. The proof that it buys nothing is that the page I push hardest is the one about not paying at all, which earns me precisely nothing. More on the arrangement at about this site.