LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK INFORMATION
Money & Costs
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Korea is a developed country, but you can get by on a modest budget, although the ever-rising won (appreciating 10% a year against the US dollar) has been making the country more expensive for foreign visitors. Accommodation is always the main travel expense, and comfortable, en suite rooms cost around W30,000 (approximately US$33) in smart new motels or W5000 less in older-style yeogwan (motel). Top-end hotels are rare outside major cities, but their rack rates are generally heavily discounted to around W200,000 to W250,000. Midrange hotels are being squeezed by the new high-rise motels, and their normal W150,000 rates are sometimes discounted below W100,000.
HOW MUCH?
Local newspaper: W700
Food-court lunch: W5000
Cinema ticket: W7000
Steak dinner: W25,000
Motel room: W30,000
Transport, Korean meals, alcohol, saunas and admission prices to sights and national parks are still relatively cheap, so careful-spending duos travelling around Korea can manage on W70,000 a day, while W100,000 a day allows for some luxuries – classier rooms, more taxi rides and bulgogi (sliced beef) instead of samgyeopsal (sliced fatty pork). The ultra-thrifty could hope to reduce their costs to W50,000 a day, by staying in youth hostel dormitories or rather grotty rooms, taking advantage of hospitable Koreans they meet, and living on a diet of gimbap (rice rolled in dried seaweed), bibimbap (vegetables, meat and rice) and ramyeon (instant noodles). Staying in Seoul is cheaper than touring the country. Splashing out on luxury hotels, top-class meals and duty-free shops ups the budget to W400,000 a day or more.
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