Home > Seoul > DMZ Past and Present: Korean Demilitarized Zone Tour from Seoul
USD $46.00
DMZ Past and Present: Korean Demilitarized Zone Tour from Seoul
Seoul, South Korea
On this tour of the Korean Demilitarized Zone from Seoul, feel the reality of Korea’s turbulent history as you explore the line that divides North Korea and South Korea. Travel by comfortable coach and learn fascinating history from your expert guide about the role this zone played in the Cold War and the Korean War, and how it now stands as a symbol of both division and unification. Sites you’ll visit include Imjingak Park, the Freedom Bridge, the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel and the DMZ exhibition hall.
After pickup from your Seoul hotel at your selected departure time, you will be taken by comfortable coach to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a strip of land splitting North and South Korea, becoming one of the tensest fronts during the Cold War and the Korean War.
Stop first in Imjingak, a park located in the banks of Imjin River where you’ll see artillery and war artifacts that were used during the Korean conflict. Proceed to Freedom Bridge, crossed by nearly 13,000 Korean POWs on their return back to freedom. As you explore by foot, learn from your guide about the powerful significance of this bridge.
Re-board the coach and head to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, located beneath the border of North Korea and South Korea. Here, learn about the role of these tunnels, which are believed to have been planned as a military invasion route by North Korea. See where the South Koreans have blocked the actual Military Demarcation Line with concrete barricades.
Continue to the DMZ exhibition hall to browse photographs and war artifacts. This hall now stands as a symbol of peace – an attempt to mend the damages wrought by Korea's history.
You’ll then be taken to the Dora Observatory, where you can use binoculars to scope out North Korea. Listen to your guide explain the lifestyle across the river as you observe the village of Kijongdong.
Next, head to Dorasan Station, a historic and symbolic spot that marks both the division and a gateway of exchanges between the north and the south. Proceed to the Unification Village to observe the daily life of this small farming community, which specialized in creating soybean milk, traditional soy sauce and corn goods. Then you'll stop by the Amethyst Factory or Ginseng Center before being dropped off at the Seoul City Hall.
If you choose the morning tour or afternoon tour only, you’ll end back in Seoul at City Hall. If you choose the morning tour with lunch, you’ll stop first at a local restaurant for lunch.
If you choose the full-day tour, you’ll enjoy lunch and then head to Insadong Antique Market, which was once the largest market for antiques and artworks in Korea. Browse the various shops, peruse crafts and bargain for that perfect souvenir with the help of your guide. Your tour will end here.
Schedual is very tight and should have more time in some attractions. Our guide Gemma was super and had a good knowleadge about Korean history and visited attractions.
Review by: Robert C, April 2018
The tour was perfectly organized, everything was very precise and on time. We've got all official and non-official information about DMZ. Strongly recommended for everyone who is interesting in the earliest history.
Review by: Jennifer M, April 2018
The DMZ tour was great, our guide, Sonya, was informative and interesting. I was interesting to learn about the history of the DMZ and be able to go into one of the tunnels, as well as an observatory. The tour itself is worth 4 stars.
Review by: Lothax, April 2018
We loved this tour, even with the obligatory overpriced shopping stops, which are easy to ignore. You get to see the infamous DMZ and see views from high above the border and into North Korea. One of their fake cities is even visible. Be sure to take the option and walk all the way down the access tunnel dug under the border. It is an enlightening experience.
Review by: Lynne M, April 2018
Our DMZ tour was one of the highlights of our trip to South Korea. So moving and gives a great insight into the political situations past and present. The new railway station awaiting the day of reunification is heart wrenching and wouldn't it be wonderful to see it in use during our lifetime!! The tour was sometimes a little rushed but it needed to be to fit everything in. We were very disappointed though that the JSA was not able to be visited during the time we were in Seoul. Our guide was very knowledgeable and happily answered our questions. Passage into the 3rd infiltration tunnel was great for those of us old fogies who were able to manage it. Be aware that it has a very steep entry and a very steep exit. My 72 year old husband with mobility issues was able to complete it quite comfortably and says it was one of his best experiences. I can highly recommend this trip to all.
Review by: sylvia3u, March 2018
Our tour guide was very funny and gave us lots of great information about Korean history as well as present-day culture.
Review by: Karen B, March 2018
I think the DMZ tour was very good, very informative. We were able to see a lot, I wish we had a little more time at each stop. At the beginning on the bus, our guide was interuppted 3 times with phones calls while giving a brief history of Korea, this was distrating to the information. She was overall very pleasant.
Review by: LA LAM VI, February 2018
Really nice tour, highly recommend to whom want to explore the history of the Korean War or just want to see the famous DMZ in the world. Knowledgable and funny tour guide.
Review by: Hills B, January 2018
Great tour and very good guide from start till end! Very interesting! Good budget tour!
Review by: Anna D, January 2018
It was very interesting and informative, as well as surprising. I didn't realise that there was an amusement park next to the DMZ, or that there would be souvenir shops there. The only aspect of the tour I didn't like was the visit to the ginseng shopping centre on the way back to Seoul city centre, where we were taken into the sales room and put under considerable pressure to buy very expensive ginseng products.
Review by: sunrock_co, December 2017
Very interesting and a must see!!!
Review by: Carol T, December 2017
Great tour guide, i enjoy this tour with my family.
Review by: Yooko, December 2017
The tour around DMZ itself was great, except the part where they stopped on the way back to Seoul and transferred some of us to a different bus because the one bus was taking the rest of guests for a full day tour and stopped to a ginseng shop tourist's trap.
Review by: Eloise D, December 2017
We originally booked the DMZ and JSA tour but a week before it was cancelled and we could not rebook so we changed to this tour. Unfortunately, this tour was not able to visit the listed sites due to snowy weather. Although it is stated on the website that the tour can be cancelled at any time without warning, it was very disappointing that we were not told of this risk of closure due to snow before leaving Soul. We would have expected a reputable Soul tour company to be aware that snow closes the DMZ for tourists and inform us of this as soon as we were picked up. Since snow is a frequent occurrence in South Korea this cannot be the first time it has happened. Although the tour guide was very nice, she seemed completely surprised that the DMZ was closed due to the weather. Since the DMZ was closed on this particular day, we had the Plan B tour which honestly was a complete waste of time, and sitting in a very uncomfortable bus for so long was so uncomfortable. We would much rather have just been driven back to Seoul and not attended any of the Plan B activities. We went to an observatory outside of the DMZ which looked like it is only ever visited when the DMZ is closed. There was no visibility so we could not see across into North Korea. It really was a back up option. Then we were taken to a Ginseng shop where sales assistants tried to sell us Ginseng. Then we were taken to the War Memorial in Soul which is free entry, but by this time it was well past lunch time so we actually left to go and get lunch and we went back to the War Memorial at a later time. The mini-bus was small and incredibly uncomfortable considering we spend so much time in it. We spent well over one hour at the start of the morning driving around Seoul collecting guests from their hotel. I'm sure other people have had much better experiences then us if they actually got to do the DMZ tour, but I can only review what we experienced.
Review by: Lawrence A, December 2017
This tour was absolutely terrible. Firstly, the tour guide claimed to one of the top 150 elite soldiers country who participated in multiple tours of duty in secret ops including assassinations and guerrilla warfare and that it was forbidden to take photos of him and he was only there because of military order. Really? One of the top soliders in Korea has nothing better to do than to sell Ginseng to a bus load of tourists? I'm going to have to call BS on that one, unless he is the first lieutenant colonel of the department of Ginseng sales. That's the other thing. We had to rush through everything on the tour, but we had plenty of time to go to a Ginseng shop. We also did not get to see the DMZ that day because it was closed down due to an incident involving a defecting soldier the day before. I'm not faulting this tour for that since it's understandable that war zones can be unpredictable. But it's incredible that this elite soldier with the highest military security clearances had NO IDEA that the DMZ was closed that day and had a lot of trouble finding out why when all the other tour guides that I overheard knew exactly what happened that were informing their tour groups with many details of the previous days' incident. We also went for lunch at 2:30pm which is way past lunch time. Clearly this is just a ploy to sell Ginseng. I don't mind so much that they want to sell Ginseng but what I have a problem with is that they think we are dumb enough to believe such ridiculous lies. I do not recommend this tour.
Review by: Wolfgang N, December 2017
The tour was interesting and informative, Upon return to Seoul I had the feeling the guide could not wait to drop us off wherever convenient for her. Overall, a good experience.
Review by: Steven d, November 2017
The DMZ tour was a little bit of a disappointing. We have to do everything in a hurry but we got enough time te visit a commercial stop at a ginseng factory. This stop was a suprise. Nobody told us before this was part of the tour. I paid for a DMZ tour and not for a ginseng tour! Futhermore we had our tour with a lunch. The lunch was good but it was at the end of the tour in Seoul at 2:30 pm. Thats not lunchtime!
Review by: Ian H, November 2017
This was an interesting trip of which the tunnel visit was memorable. Bit of an anticlimax when you get to the end of the tunnel but it's quite a walk up and down, which makes you appreciate what it stands for all more._br/_ The Dora Obseratory is what it say, just a view point. Very little to see out of the normal. Yes you can see the fencing but that's all. Kaesong city in the distance looks like any other city. You just have to use your imagination of what goes on across the border._br/_ Imjingak bridge once again not very exciting. Go staring to the bridge area rather than the viewpoint. As with most tours you only get about 20 minutes at each stop apart from the tunnels._br/_ The DorsanStation was a surprise in that it was a modern railway station.... you can actually get a train out to this point and pick up a local tour I believe..._br/_ Overall the highlight for us was the military officer leading the tour yes we were surprised also, this officer was very impressive, many years service and therefore explained everything with a degree of gravity. He is the part of the tour I will never forget. Excellent._br/_ In summary not as interesting as I had hoped for but there is that element of actually being there and seeing it yourself. The full day day tour which gets you up close and personal is likely the best bet....._br/_ Would still advise you to go and see this as it's likely a once in a lifetime opportunity....
Review by: Vanessa B, November 2017
I was really disappointed for knowing that with this tour we actualy don't visit the demilitarized zone we just look at it with binoculars. The guide was excelent. At the end of the tour you have to go to a ginseng shop. Overall it was ok.
Review by: Edward C, November 2017
Half day trip to DMZ etc excellent especially the two lady guides. The visit to Ginseng shop a waste of time however!!
Review by: Stephanie B, November 2017
This tour is very informative and interesting! The lunch was tasty too!
Review by: Mark R, November 2017
Really interesting trip and the guide was very good.
Review by: Irving A H, November 2017
This is a must tour for everyone. You got a chance to see the border and North Korea from an observation location. We took a lot of pictures there. And then the most amazing experience is when we can enter the 3rd infiltration tunnel built by North Korea. I must warn you though that it is a very tiring experience and your body must be fit: walking 300 meter with 11 degree angle downward, 400 meter walking in a cold and tight tunnel, and another 300 meter climbing in 11 degree angle upward. Plus the fact that the tunnel is quite low that most of the time you need to bow down a bit, which give burden to your back. I was sweating in the cold November weather._br/_ Our tour guide, Jay, was great and very informative.
Review by: Myrna R, October 2017
This tour was good and I learned a lot of history, but it was somewhat rushed. We would have 10 mins to see something for example and when we went to the 3rd tunnel we had 30 mins and the tunnel is super steep which was no problem going down, but it took longer coming back out._br/_ The guide, Dora, was good but difficult to understand at times._br/_ The lunch was very good but nothing was explained, so we did not know what the side dishes were.
Review by: Jason S, October 2017
Tour guide was excellent and we were given more than enough time at each stop to appreciate what we were experiencing. Well worth it!
Review by: gohils01, October 2017
Well organised and well explained. Definitely worth the trip.
Review by: ALEXANDROS N, October 2017
Our guide Lina, was a very professional person, very friendly and approachable.She explained everything,she created a very nice atmosphere for all of us in the group,the driver of the minibus was very professional and the minibus was very clean.Thanks to the excellent organizational skills of our guide we had time to see and explore everything,enough time for lunch as well in the first stop.With regards to the places that we visited,each and every one was worth visiting, very nice places full of energy and historical background.This excursion is highly recommended of you want to escape for a while from the busy city centre of Seoul.You cannot say that you visited Korea if you haven't visited the DMZ.
Review by: Michelle W, October 2017
Really nice being able to take this tour. Nice learning about all the history. Getting to see the DMZ was great!
Review by: Zachary G, October 2017
Great tour! Our guide gave us a lot of information and fully prepared us for each stop. Worth it
Review by: Melanie B, October 2017
Captain Han was awesome.
Review by: Leslie Y, October 2017
I benefitted most from the information and history shared by Jay, our tour guide. The stops within the DMZ were fairly mundane but the passion and underlying energy from the locals regarding their hopes for unification was very clear. The tour was well attended and worth the time spent. It's an enjoyable venue for a bit of learning and hopefully contributes to a better informed world and hope for an improved future for all. The ginseng factory presentation had beautiful displays and was informative but selling product seemed to be their real goal.
Review by: Mandy D, September 2017
Great and informative _br/_ Definitely do this tour_br/_ Touch the dividing wall of North and South Korea in tunnel _br/_ Bit of walking down a slope so knees and hips may suffer
Review by: D A D, September 2017
This tour opens up vistas to the complexities of North - South Korean dispute. The DMZ tunnel is the climax of the tour. The claustrophobic should not take the tour, as do the people who have limitations for steep climbs.
Review by: Gizem S, September 2017
It was a great tour that took us to good places to explore. Hotel pickup was on time, the journey was comfortable. Our guide Rebecca provided us interesting information about the history of war and the current situation. During my stay, all Panmunjom tours were postponed due to the tension between the countries, so I had to choose this tour instead. But this tour was also sufficient enough for me. You get to see North Korean border and small villages from the observatory, I even saw the North Korean flags waving on their soil. You don't get to the north as close as you do in a Panmunjom tour, but you get to see the general area and feel the atmosphere in the demilitarized zone.
Review by: Miho S, September 2017
This was really good even when it was raining cats and dogs when i went for the tour. There was just a bit of difference about the hat inside the tunner. There are yellow hats and blue hats. Blue hats allow people to ride the coaster going up so no need to walk in steep tunnel to go back. We all got the yellow one. It would have been so much fun if we could choose to get the blue hat. The ride itself would be an experience plus going upeards in a tunnel without really a good view is tiring.
Review by: Yan Kei Emily C, September 2017
A tour of any form is essential if you want to visit the DMZ. Took this tour a couple months back. Pretty good except that we didn't have time to properly explore the DMZ sites. The only place we were allowed too much time was at a Ginseng store in Seoul.
Review by: Geoff W, August 2017
If you want to go see the DMZ, this is a perfectly fine way to do it. Just realize what you're going to see is actually rather tranquil. The tunnel and Dora Mt. overlook are the best parts.
Review by: Donald A, July 2017
Tour was a little unorganized at first having to wait over 30 minutes for some of the tourists to show up for the tour. But after that we hit the ground running. Very interesting and educational tour. Incredible to see the DMZ and the tunnel. Highly recommend this tour.
Review by: jeff, June 2017
Nice tour. But time is limited
Review by: Sitti, June 2017
Jay is so friendly. keep it up Jay!!! The tour is also informative. thanks
Review by: Milan, June 2017
A really enjoyable tour. Our guide - Chloe - was very helpful. The history of the DMZ is utterly fascinating and the sites are incredible. Highlights for me are Imjingak Park, the video about the Korean war and Dora Observatory. Only downside of the tour was a bizarre trip to a Ginseng Center which, for me, was unnecessary. _br/_ Tips:_br/_ - don't forget your passport!_br/_ - the walk to the tunnel is very steep so make sure you wear appropriate footwear and that you're reasonably fit_br/_ - make the most of Imjingak Park and especially writing a postcard to yourself which will be posted 1 year later_br/_ - have 500 won coins available so you can use the binoculars to look at North Korea
Review by: Elena B., May 2017
Remained sad memories of this trip to the border between the two countries, this empty railway station, waiting for the arrival of people from North Korea, hopes for the unification of families. But as long as silence reigns here, violated only by propaganda slogans from North Korea, one can hope that not all is pulled for the wonderful smiling people in South Korea, whom I met in this beautiful country. Very lucky with the guide, the officer of the South Korean army, Hans, thank you very much for the excellent organization, for the delicious lunch and let there always be peace with the hope of uniting one, albeit divided, people of Korea
Review by: Tim Z, May 2017
This was an okay tour. The tour it's self was good, and the guide was ok. The actual visit to the observation was short, but well worth it. There could have been a more explicit warning about the level of physical activity required 400 meters down and a very steep tunnel, and the tour to the ginsing store was not okay. To be hearded into a small sales room, and the door to be closed for a very pressured pitch was not acceptable. I would recomend you find a more expensive tour that doestn put you in this position.
Review by: John C G, May 2017
The guide seemed to be knowledgeable but never actually guided. Captain Hans was quick to point out that he was a graduate of Korea's West Point and had a few stories to tell on the bus but he never had anything to share once we arrived at any of our destinations. Any good guide is able to bring things to life, Captain Hans seemed more concerned with making sure everyone was back on the bus on time.
Review by: Diana L, April 2017
It was our first time in Korea and we joined this tour for our boys to experience Korea history. We really enjoy it and our tour guide, Sunny she is excellent! This tour is the highlight of our trip. Highly recommended.
Review by: Elisa B, April 2017
It was a great experience to visit the DMZ, but the tour was always in a rush. I didn and #39;t have time enough to enjoy the place...
Review by: Paola G, April 2017
This tour is just so relevant and exciting. As someone who has been following recent news about this divided country, this tour made me understand their current situation and hopes for the future so much better. Our guide, Capt._br/_ Hans, is just the best storyteller. A must-do when in Korea!
Review by: Eva S, April 2017
Great tour, highly recommended. We were picked up at our hotel on time, and fulfilled the entire itinerary on the list as promised._br/_ Professionally planed and organised. Very interesting tour, our tour guide Rebecca spoke English well and she was very passionate about providing us with a lot of relevant information. This half day tour is great value. I'm glad we didn't choose the tour with the added lunch option as we all finished and dropped off at the same street full of restaurants. I had the freedom and choices of any, but people who pre-paid had no options.
Review by: hadrianvega, April 2017
Was a very good tour, but the tour could be better if the people have more time to know the places and to take pictures.
Review by: Michelle Danes G, March 2017
Worth it! It's actually a safe tour than what we expected, as long you follow their limits and rules. On-time pick up time from where we stay. 'Rebecca the tour guide is very friendly, accommodating and approachable. She explains the tour very well in english. _br/_ We had a tour with lunch which was okay. especially, after the tour we're all hungry around 2:30pm.
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