Half Day Korea DMZ Tour (hotel pick up) / opt: suspension bridge

Best tour to know the history of Korea

This tour is highly recommended, especially our tour guide Katie! She is sooooo passionate and kind to everyone. She explained the history, story and fun facts so well. If you are interested in the relationship/history of north & South Korea, pls definitely join this tour when visiting Korea!

Amazing journey to DMZ

The trip was amazing! we enjoy the itinerary from beginning to end, especially we'd like to shout out to our tour guide Katie, who is full of enthusiasm and care for all the ppl on the bus and she explains everything in details! I love this tour so much and would definitely continue to join other tour when I visit Seoul next time!

Great day trip and history lesson.

This half day trip went from pickup at 9:10 am til drop off at 5:15 approximate. Grace was our tour guide and she was very informative. We got a great capsule history lesson as we got started and a bit more history along the way between stops and Informative history pertaining to the next stop. We were also informed of upcoming food and restroom opportunities. The history between North and South Korea is sad and I learned more about the other countries involved in their history of conflict. We were in and around the DMZ most of the trip and stopped at the market just outside the S Korean village in the DMZ where we could try soybean ice cream and purchase some food and snacks for souvenirs. Many opportunities to grab a coffee, snack, lunch and souvenirs. Walking into and through the 3rd tunnel from N Korea discovered by SK was an interesting opportunity highlighting the continuing efforts by N Korea to reclaim S Korea. Grace was responsive to questions as well. The only negative is that I could have used a bit more time at a few of the stops to look around at the many things to see and read. Would definitely do this again with other family members.

Must do

This was an informative, interesting tour. Our guide Chloe was excellent. Even though there were many other bus loads of visitors, everything ran very smoothly.

Disappointed due to incorrect communication given by the original tour guide.

Going to the DMZ is a must for visitors to South Korea! I'm giving 3 stars because the tour guide offered us an earlier admission bus by transferring to a different bus. When asked what we would be missing to do so, the tour guide said we would be missing nothing. For that reason we said yes. Well, I was really looking forward to visiting the freedom bridge which is a reason I booked this specific tour as that was part of the tour agenda. It turns out we never got to go to the freedom bridge because we transferred to the earlier bus. I'm extremely disappointed that we were misled. Had the tour guide told us we would be missing the opportunity to visit the freedom bridge by transferring buses, we would have stayed put. Their communication was wrong and that resulted in us missing a highlight of the tour.

My family are English...

My family are English speakers and the guide was very difficult to understand. Because of this, we missed a lot of the information and history that was given.

Historical

The guides were great and this was very interesting, easy trip with unexpected information about the history of the area and the hardships experienced by the families.

Amazing trip, group size was perfect

Katie was excellent! The pickup was easy, the bus size was pretty small so we didn't have a large group, which made moving around quick and efficient. She gave us great history of the countries and we saw many important sites/areas. She went above and beyond at all times to ensure everyone was having a good time, getting the photos they needed and safe. This was an amazing tour and I'm glad we were able to go, and that we chose this one.

WORTH IT!!!

This tour was way above our expectations! We were greeted personally and cheerfully by our special tour guide "Joey" who immediately made us feel welcomed and warmly embraced with Korean hospitality. Her expert guidance and experience kept us moving physically, emotionally, and educationally as we made our way to the different stops. The most memorable experience was the journey through one of the infiltration tunnels. Not sure if it was in the fine print or we just missed it in the instructions, but good walking/hiking shoes are a must to participate in this stop!

DMZ tour with Mr. Cool

I think that the half day tour was perfect for our family. Our tour guide, Mr. “Cool” Park provided a good amount of historical background for each of the locations we visited mixed with funny/tragic anecdotes. I highly recommend getting him as a tour guide since he was able to keep our family (15 of us in total, age range from 10-81 years old) engaged.

I had a great time, but...

I did my research on the DMZ but not tours, so some of my experience is hard to put in context. You can tell from the title "no forced shopping" that that's a problem with the industry, and proclaiming something in the title doesn't make it true. First off: it wasn't half day but whole day. I embarked before 9 and they dropped us off at 5pm. The itinerary was the DMZ Visitors center, the observatory, the third tunnel, and then the unification village in the DMZ. We didn't get to the Joint Security Area because it's still closed following tensions several weeks ago. Our first stop out of Seoul was the visitor center, where our guide grabbed everyone's passports and ran in to make reservations for the guarded bridge. Bridge crossings are timed, and we didn't get there super early so our bridge time was 1pm despite arriving at the visitors center at 10am. The visitors center itself and tour of the area was nice, but it did feel a little much time there. Lunch was good. Taking a gondola across a river and active minefield was certainly interesting. The remnants of the railroad bridge to the north are poignant. Next up, past the civilian control line - The DMZ itself is four miles wide, and past that are another two miles of heavily fortified land... But also land that's still actively lived in and worked. Farms are next to well marked minefields. The journey up the the observatory was relatively quick and painless, the the view from there is gorgeous. The third tunnel has ain interesting visitor's center... The mandatory propaganda video was okay, if a little cheesy. The exhibits are well done. The tunnel itself is an experience, definitely interesting and worth the trip but what a hike. The last stop was unification village, and by that I mean we drove through town to the grocery store that had a gift shop. I can't say this was my favorite part, but the final stop and bathroom break before heading back is hard to fault overly much, and seeing the middle of the small town and it's grocery store is actually pretty interesting and informative. Definitely not one of the tourist trapiest things I could have done, but if you've got a car you can just drive everywhere yourself; it's actually pretty doable and navigable. On the other hand, if you want to be guided and not have to do any of the planning and driving, this is it.

DMZ Tour

The Tour Guide is very knowledgeable and created an informational journey, rich with history. She allowed us to understand the experiences of the Korean peoples, both past and present, through an historical framework. I highly recommend this tour.

Great tour, good organisation.

It was a great tour, the organisation of the tour was fine, guide was helpful and provided lots of interesting information to us. I recommend this tour.

Fun

Yeonni our guide was awesome she had plenty of knowledge and was enthusiastic. The Dmz was closed but I was told in advance and was satisfied with the alternative tour. I could have skipped the ginseng museum though..

Interesting Trip

A very interesting trip although at the time we went we were unable to reach the actual border due to an outbreak of swine flu. We were dropped off at the war museum on the way back into town and that is well worth a visit

Fun day today

The alternative tour planned for today was very well organised. The tour guide Yeoni displayed utmost patience with all. She explained about history of various places we visited. And always ready to help out with the photos. The Odu Obsevatory was fantastic- we could see the propaganda village on the other side of the border. The Imjingak peace park was beautiful as we could see a lot of information and emotions from the past. This is a recommended tour as thr DMZ was not open to public. I wish you good luck Cheers Priyanka Bakshi

Poor value

We got off to a bad start when the visit to the 3rd Observation tunnel was taken off the itinerary due to swine flu. Not their fault, but certainty not ours, and the content was substantially downgraded with a substitute visit to the war museum in downtown Seoul, which is easy to get to, with free admission - don't need a tour for that. I would've at least expected a discount from the original price when an inferior product was delivered. To add insult to injury, the visit to Imjinak was extremely hurried, yet there was LOTS of time to be dragged through the "shopping". Another example of their poor planning is the way we had to be at our pick up point at 7.20, (not our hotel), and were then driven around downtown Seoul for a full hour, when to our dismay, we realised we were passing an area 2 blocks from where we had been picked up. Happily we did not opt for the lunch option which sounded pretty ordinary. The guide was pretty good, and is the only reason the rating is 2 stars and not 1. Probably the worst organised tour I've ever had the misfortune to go on.

Educatinal and well organized

The guide was very informative. Learnt facts about Korea and Korean war. Would recommend. Worth the money.

Quick tour for Brief History Lesson

Youn was an excellent tour guide - super energetic and willing to give our knowledge to anyone that would listen. I found this tour interesting from a historical standpoint because I did not know much about the history of Korea. What I say next goes for ANY half day tour you take visiting Imjingak, Dora Observatory, 3rd Tunnel as each half day tour visits the same locations as the only way to get into the DMZ is via a tour groups. You have very limited time at each stop if doing the half day tour - I would have preferred more time at Imjingak versus the other two locations since there was more to see/read and walk around versus the other locations. You hardly have enough time to see the sights at each stop and look for souvenirs. Unfortunately I was not able to do the JSA portion since I booked short notice but I think if you can do DMZ and JSA, the tour would be more beneficial!

Good Korean Tour Company

I stayed in South Korean for 3 nights to ensure that I had enough time see everything that I wanted to see. To make sure that I saw everything, I took the following tours: 1. Morning N. Seoul Tower, Hanok Village and Korean War Memorial 2. Changedeokgung, Insa-dong and Namdaemum Afternoon Tour 3. Demilitarized Zone and 3rd Infiltration Tunnel They picked us up from our hotel, which was very convenient. All these tours were well done with a tour guide as well as a driver. When I had the two tours in one day, they allowed us to join their full day groups and just pay for the meal using cash. This made it easier, as I found figuring out where to eat was a challenge in South Korea. I would recommend this company.

Une visite touristique incontournable

Katie, la guide est super cool. Elle explique bien le contexte historique, ainsi on n'est pas perdu. La partie de l'excursion sur la DMZ est bien construite et enrichissante. C'est une bonne introduction pour ceux qui veulent en savoir plus sur l'histoire de ce pays. Depuis, l'observatoire, on peut apercevoir la Corée du Nord. Seul bémol: la visite sur le ginseng coréen. On survole la partie musée pour nous diriger rapidement vers la partie boutique où les prix sont exhorbitants.