The price is the same for everyone, apart from a few special cases. Let's walk through how your Korea experience comes together, piece by piece.

The base rate

From $25 per hour, with a 4-hour minimum. That's the whole structure. A typical half-day course wandering around Seoul runs 4 to 5 hours, so most bookings land between $100 and $125.

Want more time? You can extend by the hour, even on the day, as long as your crew's schedule allows. Plenty of people add an hour when dinner runs long. That's usually a good sign.

What the fee covers

The rate is your crew's fee — the person, not a package. And it's more than the hours you spend together, because every crew booking includes our online guide service.

Itinerary planning before you fly. Already built an itinerary? Send it over and your crew will trim it, reorder it, and fix the parts that look good on Instagram but eat two hours of transit. Prefer to start from scratch? Tell us what you're into — food, quiet neighborhoods, K-pop, night views — and your crew proposes a few route options to pick from.

Real-time help during your trip. Even on the days your crew isn't walking next to you, you can ping them online — "is this place worth the line?", "which exit at this station?" A local on call, for the whole trip.

A local friend for the day. Someone who walks with you, orders the thing the menu doesn't translate, talks you out of the tourist-trap café, and knows which alley actually has the good photo light. Menus, bus apps, "where do I tap this card" — handled.

What it doesn't cover

Food, drinks, entrance tickets, transport during the day — you cover the on-the-spot costs for both of you. The fee you pay is for the time your crew spends with you. Factor these in when you plan your budget :)

There are no other hidden fees. The hourly rate plus the day's actual expenses is the whole bill.

Two or three of you?

The base rate is built around one traveler with one crew. Small groups of two or three are usually fine — the rate can shift a little depending on group size, so mention it in the chat and your crew will sort out the quote before you pay anything.

How payment works

Once your route and schedule are set in the chat, you get a PayPal link and pay upfront — no cash envelopes, no meeting-point awkwardness, and a payment record on both sides. Cancellation is straightforward:

• 2+ weeks before your date — full refund.
• 1–2 weeks before — 50% refund.
• Less than a week — no refund.
• One note: once your crew has started the online planning work (building or optimizing your route), about 20% is non-refundable at any point — that part of the work is already done and delivered.

Don't need the walk? The online guide works on its own too

Some travelers just want the brain, not the company. The online guide that comes bundled with every crew booking — itinerary planning before you fly, real-time answers during the trip — is also available as a standalone option. It costs less than an in-person day, and the details depend on your trip length — ask in the chat.

So… is it worth it?

Could you spend less? Sure. Big bus tours in Seoul start cheap, and nobody's pretending otherwise. But that seat buys you one guide shared with forty people, a megaphone, and a route that was fixed before you booked. What you're buying here is different: one local human, all to yourself, a route built around what you like, online support for the whole trip — and the freedom to change the plan at 3pm because you fell in love with a neighborhood. Private small-group tours that offer anything close usually cost more than this. We're biased, obviously. But that's the math.