Busan With Kids
The city where I was pregnant with Gavin, where we adopted our dog Eunee, and where we came back with all three kids.
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Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel
How many nights do we need in Busan?
Two to three. That covers a beach day, Gamcheon, Jagalchi, and a slower afternoon without rushing.
How do you get to Busan?
The KTX from Seoul, about two hours forty minutes, or the high speed train from Suseo Station in under three hours. Both are far easier than flying.
Is Busan kid-friendly?
Very. Wide beaches, an aquarium, a cable car, and enough open space that kids get to run around, not just walk between sites.
Is Busan worth it if we already did Seoul?
Yes. It is a different city, coastal instead of landlocked, and it pairs easily onto a Seoul trip with one train ride.
The City Where I Was Pregnant With Gavin
I moved to Busan in 2011, my second stint in Korea, and this time I was pregnant with Gavin the whole way through it. We adopted our dog Eunee from a pet store in Busan and I flew her home to the States myself, paperwork and crate and all. It is a completely different city than Gwangju, bigger, louder, right up against the ocean, and it is where I became a mother in Korea instead of just someone living there. I brought all three kids back in 2018 and watched them run around on the same beaches I used to walk pregnant and alone.
Who it’s for
Families who want a real Korean coastal city, not a resort town dressed up to look like one. Busan is Korea’s second largest city and it has beaches, mountains, and a working fish market all inside a 30 minute subway ride of each other. It is also the easiest Korean city to pair with Seoul, the high speed train gets you there in under three hours.
Who should skip it
If your whole trip is Seoul and one other stop, and beaches aren’t the draw for your family, put your extra days into Jeju instead. Busan rewards families with at least a couple of days to settle in, not a rushed overnight between two flights.
Getting There
General ranges, not exact schedules. Your travel advisor can pin down the real times once your dates are set.
Where To Stay
Two To Three Nights
Enough time for a real beach day, an afternoon at Gamcheon, and a walk through Jagalchi without feeling like you are checking boxes.
Haeundae Or Nampo-dong
Haeundae puts you on the beach with the resort towers and the aquarium. Nampo-dong and BIFF Square put you in the old downtown, closer to Jagalchi and the ferry terminal.
It’s A Real Stop, Not A Layover
Busan sits between Seoul and Jeju on a lot of itineraries and gets treated like a connection. It deserves its own nights.
Where We Send Families To Splurge
Paradise Hotel Busan, right on Haeundae Beach, is the real hotel from a client itinerary we booked ourselves, high speed train down from Seoul, private full day city tour included. Ocean view rooms, an actual spa floor, and the beach is a five minute walk.
Central And On The Subway Line
Seomyeon is Busan’s real downtown crossroads, every subway line runs through it. Good pick if you want easy access to the KTX station and a break from beach crowds.
These Are Areas, Not A Full List
As with the rest of this series, these are neighborhoods to look at, not a complete list of properties we’ve personally stayed at. Paradise Hotel Busan is the one exception, a real recommendation tied to a real trip we planned.
Top Sights For Families
Poppy marks the family parts. Wherever you see her, that section is written for traveling with children.These are the things to do in busan with kids that earned a spot on our own busan family itinerary, the ones worth building a whole day around instead of just passing through.
Gamcheon Culture Village
Everyone’s seen the photos, and it’s still worth the trip. A whole hillside neighborhood painted in blues, pinks and yellows, with narrow stairways, murals and little art installations tucked between real people’s homes. It gets crowded midday, so go early if you can. Wear shoes you don’t mind climbing stairs in, it’s steeper than it looks online, and budget a couple of hours to wander instead of just photographing the overlook.
Haeundae And Gwangalli Beaches
Haeundae is the big, famous beach, wide sand, warm water in summer, a wall of hotel towers behind it, and the SEA LIFE aquarium right there if the kids need a break from sand. Gwangalli, a subway ride away, is smaller and quieter during the day and completely different at night, when the Gwangan Bridge lights up across the water. Do one for the afternoon and the other for dinner.
Jagalchi Fish Market
A real, working fish market, not a tourist recreation of one. Tanks of live octopus, rows of dried fish, vendors calling out prices, and upstairs seating where they’ll cook whatever you just bought. It’s loud, it smells like the ocean, and it is one of the most honest places to take kids in the entire city. Even if nobody eats raw fish, it’s worth walking through.
For The Kids
This is the beach stop. Sand, water, a cable car, and a fish market loud enough to keep everyone’s attention, a real break from temples and history days.
Downtime Pick
SEA LIFE Busan Aquarium. Right at Haeundae Beach, an easy, air conditioned reset after a morning in the sun, sharks, otters and a walkthrough tunnel that even a tired nine year old will perk up for.
What To Eat
Dwaeji gukbap
Eomuk fish cake skewers
Ssiat hotteok
Nicole’s Perspective
Busan is the beach city Korea keeps for itself
I lived in Korea twice and Busan was the weekend everybody wanted. It is the country’s second city and it feels nothing like Seoul. There is a proper beach at Haeundae, a fish market that will stop your children in their tracks, temples on cliffs above the sea, and a hillside village painted every color there is.
For families I put it at the end of a Korea trip. Two or three nights, the KTX down from Seoul in under three hours, a beach day, a market morning, a temple, and a night on the Gwangalli sand watching the bridge light up. It is the easy part of the trip and the kids usually call it their favorite.
If you want me to build it around your dates and your kids’ ages, that is what I do.
Taejongdae
A Half Day On The Cliffs
About 20 minutes from downtown, Taejongdae is a park built along dramatic sea cliffs at the southern tip of the city, with a walking loop or a little train, the danubi, if small legs need a ride instead. There’s a lighthouse, wide ocean views, and enough open space for kids to run. Pair it with lunch in Nampo-dong or a stop at Jagalchi on the way back and it makes an easy, uncomplicated half day away from the beach crowds.
A Night At Busan’s Beachfront Icon
If you’re going to splurge once in Busan, this is where. Paradise Hotel Busan sits right on Haeundae, it’s the hotel in a real Goway itinerary we booked for a client, high speed train down from Seoul and a private full day city tour included. Ocean view rooms, an indoor-outdoor spa floor, and the beach is a five minute walk from the lobby.
Getting around, which is easier than Seoul
Busan is long and thin, wrapped around a coastline and cut up by hills, so it looks harder to navigate than it is. Almost everything a family wants sits on two subway lines.
Line 1 runs down the spine through Nampo-dong and the fish market. Line 2 runs east along the coast to Gwangalli and Haeundae. If you are choosing where to sleep, choose a station on one of those two and stop worrying about the rest.
Load a T-money card at any convenience store and tap on. It works on the subway, the buses and, unlike a lot of places, on taxis too. Children under six ride free and there is a reduced fare up to twelve.
Taxis are cheap by American standards and worth taking for the hills. Show the driver the Korean name on your phone rather than trying the English one. Kakao T is the app locals use and it works fine with a foreign card.
The one that surprises people is the Blueline Park beach train along the old coastal railway between Mipo and Songjeong. There is a slow open sided train at ground level and a four person sky capsule running above it. Book the capsule ahead in summer, it sells out, and the train alone is enough if it does not.
Gyeongju, an hour away
If you only take one day trip out of Busan, take this one. Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla kingdom for nearly a thousand years and the whole valley is scattered with what is left of it. Koreans call it the museum without walls.
The part children remember is the tumuli, the grass burial mounds that sit in the middle of town like giant green domes. You can walk right up to them, one is open so you can go inside, and they are strange enough that nobody has to be persuaded to look.
Add Bulguksa temple and, if the legs allow, the Seokguram grotto above it. Both are UNESCO listed and both are beautiful rather than dutiful.
Getting there is the easy part. The KTX from Busan station takes about half an hour to Singyeongju, then a bus or taxi into town. Leave after breakfast, be back for dinner.
When to come, and the month to avoid
Late April and May is the best window. Warm enough for the beaches to be pleasant, cool enough to climb the hills at Gamcheon without regretting it, and the cherry blossom runs through early April along the Oncheoncheon stream.
September and October is the other good one. The water is still warm from summer, the crowds have gone home, and the light on Gwangalli bridge in the evening is the reason people take that photo.
July and August is hot, humid and busy, and it is also monsoon season. Haeundae in August is famously wall to wall parasols. If that sounds fun to your family, go. If it does not, do not.
Winter is mild by Korean standards, which is to say cold but not Seoul cold. The fish market is at its best, and the beaches are empty and dramatic rather than miserable.
Things I Would Tell A Friend Before They Booked
Family Bingo
Play Along The Way
Print this out before you go and let the kids check things off while you’re exploring, from riding the cable car at Songdo to counting how many times you spot the bridge lit up at night.
Download The CardBusan FAQ
How Many Days
Two or three days for Busan with kids.
The Gamcheon culture village, Haeundae beach, the Jagalchi fish market, and the seaside temple at Haedong Yonggungsa.
Add the aquarium, the Songdo cable car over the water, and the Gwangalli beach lights at night.
Gyeongju, the old Silla capital, an hour away by train.
How many nights do we need in Busan?
Two to three. That covers a beach day, Gamcheon, Jagalchi, and a slower afternoon without rushing.
How do you get to Busan?
The KTX from Seoul, about two hours forty minutes, or the high speed train from Suseo Station in under three hours. Both are far easier than flying.
Is Busan kid-friendly?
Very. Wide beaches, an aquarium, a cable car, and enough open space that kids get to run around, not just walk between sites.
Is Busan worth it if we already did Seoul?
Yes. It is a different city, coastal instead of landlocked, and it pairs easily onto a Seoul trip with one train ride.
Ready To Add Busan To Your Korea Trip?
Let’s figure out where it fits, the beach city where I was pregnant with Gavin, built into a trip for your family now.
Plan Your Korea Trip With NicoleWritten and kept current by Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel. If something here is out of date, tell me and I will fix it.
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