[Korea Trip] cab vs. subway

Hello all,

Just came back from my first ever Seoul trip so now I can give a more thorough advise if anyone want to go there.
FIrst of all, if you hate summer or rain, DO NOT GO TO SEOUL IN JULY/EARLY AUG. I was really lucky that during my whole trip, it was just raining a tiny bit because it was the end of the monsoon period. My hotel concierge told me that it was raining heavily just the day before I arrived. I only experience it once. BUT, the weather was MAD HOT!! So, if you are escaping from a tropical country for a more chilly weather, KOREA definitely not the best option. Nevertheless, I had mad fun time so I was really grateful.

In this post, I am going to write about some transportation options while in Seoul.

I managed to take subway on the first 2 days and maybe once on my fifth day but the rest of the time we uses cab.

Here is pros and cons using cab and subway

Subway
Pros:
- Easy access to every part of suburbs
- There is no need to communicate in hangul, all you need is a clear direction of your destination
- Subway system is so cute, like everything else there anyway, they play a song when the train is approaching.
- There are lots food in the subway station so if you are hungry, you can buy some and eat there.
Not very congested

Cons:
- STAIRS! this is the only reason why we didn't take subway most of the time. the stairs, I believe, is the reason why KOREANS look so skinny and fit!
- Some seriously ulu place is hard to locate unless you have wifi all the time. We weren't able to get the wifi, some unfortunate event at the airport, so it was very hard to get around without it.

Taxi
Pros:
- You can reach really ulu place
- if you travel with a large crowd, this is definitely a better option as cab fare is peanuts in Korea!! They started at 2,400WON and it just keeps like that for the longest miles and increase by 100WON every 2mins. Most of our trips cost less than 10bucks. We live in myeongdong and the furthest we took was gangnam area (~20-30mins drive and it costs 9500WON). Price might vary during peak hours. TAKE THE ORANGE CAB! the black ones flagdown fare is 4,500WON and goes up faster.
- The cab driver usually use GPS to reach your destination so it is very safe and ensure that you don't overpay!
- Convenience.
- No waiting, no stairs. Cabs are everywhere in Seoul!

Cons:
- Some of the cab drivers are very rude especially when you don't speak the language. There were times I was dropped at a location really far from where I wanted to go so I still had to ask around. But if you speak the language and know the location of your destination, way to go!

Verdict:
If you ask me what I would use next time I go, I think I would still commute with cab unless  it is obviously easier to reach with subway. (some of the places are just next to subway and sometimes cab needs to take a long round to reach).

There you go! Hope it is useful

xoxo,

M