When Juliet Izon’s debut novel ‘The Encore’ sold, she promised her daughter Avvie a trip to Tokyo. But it was Seoul, a last-minute add-on, that captured both their hearts.
Juliet Izon, a contributor to Condé Nast Traveler, made good on a promise to her 10-year-old daughter Avvie after her debut novel, ‘The Encore,’ was published. The pair spent 10 days in Tokyo over spring break, but with two full weeks of vacation and a transpacific flight already behind them, Izon started doing the math. Seoul was just a two-hour hop from Tokyo, Avvie loved K-Beauty and K-Pop, and both were curious about Korean food beyond what they knew from home. Adding four nights in Seoul made complete sense. Neither of them expected to fall quite so hard for the city.
The practical appeal
Seoul’s time zone matched Japan’s, so there was no additional jet lag. The exchange rate with the US dollar made a city that might otherwise feel expensive surprisingly accessible. And for a 10-year-old with strong opinions about lip gloss and K-Pop choreography, it offered an almost embarrassing abundance of things to love.
But the more compelling case was one any parent of a tween will recognize: this is a liminal age, when a child begins arriving at her own passions and itineraries. Avvie came to trip planning with a list of what she wanted to eat and where she wanted to go, and Izon found herself in the unfamiliar and delightful position of following her daughter’s lead.
“One of the best parts of having a tween is that they’re at the age where they begin to have real passions and opinions,” Izon says. “When I’m planning a trip for the two of us, she’ll come to me with a list of what she’d like to eat, or where she’d like to explore, and it’s often places I wouldn’t have picked, but that are equally fun.”
Getting there and getting ready
For a direct overnight flight from New York to Tokyo, with Seoul’s identical time difference, there is no clean solution to jet lag. “I let her sleep when she gets sleepy, assume no one is getting an actual good night’s rest on the flight, and that we’ll, hopefully, be so tired by the end of that first day, we’ll sleep somewhat well that night,” Izon says.
Before leaving New York, they bought a hard copy Seoul guidebook and spent time highlighting neighborhoods, historic sites, restaurants, and K-Beauty destinations. They supplemented that with YouTube videos, TikTok, and food and travel shows on Netflix and other streaming platforms. Arriving in Seoul, they had a clear sense of where they wanted to go.
Seoul surprised them in both directions. On the practical side, Google Maps doesn’t function in South Korea. The government has not exported high-precision map data to overseas companies, though that is expected to change. It was an adjustment for Izon, who is accustomed to saving everything to Google Maps before a trip. Apps like Naver work as alternatives, but recalibrating a travel habit that feels nearly involuntary takes time.
On the more welcome side: spring in Seoul means cherry blossoms, and the city offers them in abundance. Japan may get the reputation, but Seoul’s blossoms, especially on Namsan Mountain, are spectacular. Nobody had warned them.
First impressions in Seongsu
Then there was Seongsu. Izon and Avvie dropped their bags at the hotel and headed immediately to this neighborhood in the east of the city, often described as Seoul’s Brooklyn. “This New Yorker will qualify that further, since Brooklyn is enormous: with its chic shops, restaurants, and hordes of immaculately dressed residents and visitors, it’s like Williamsburg,” Izon says. Boutiques in Seongsu stay open until 10 p.m., which means the whole area hums with energy well after dark. Avvie raced between makeup shops and bag charm stalls while the city announced itself. “I knew the energy of this city was going to be electric,” Izon says.
A guide’s perspective
For two of their four days in Seoul, Izon and Avvie worked with Condé Nast Traveler Travel Specialist Kensington Tours and a local guide named Alice, whose knowledge of Korean culture, food, fashion, and history reshaped how they moved through the city. For Izon, hiring a guide is a travel philosophy, not just a convenience. “Not only will they be able to optimize your day or days of sightseeing with the best route, but you’ll have someone to ask questions to as they arise,” she says. “And with a 10-year-old, that’s quite often.”
Alice took them to Gwangjang Market for lunch, a sprawling, bustling place where she led them directly to her favorite stall for bindae-tteok, or mung bean pancakes, followed by hotteok, a sweet pancake filled with nuts and sugar, from another vendor. “Koreans know their way around a pan-fried carb,” Izon says.
At Gyeongbokgung Palace, Alice provided layered historical context that transforms a beautiful building into a place with weight and meaning. “Seeing Seoul through her eyes allowed us to have a far more nuanced and in-depth visit during our time in the city,” Izon says.
Hanboks and K-Pop
Seoul’s major palaces offer free entry to visitors who arrive in traditional hanbok dress. In practice, far more visitors take advantage of this than don’t. The rental shops cluster near the palace gates, and on any given morning, the courtyards are full of visitors in silk and embroidery. The rental cost exceeds the price of admission, but the calculus is not really about money.
Izon held off suggesting it on their first palace visit, uncertain whether a 10-year-old would want to spend time choosing and wearing a formal traditional outfit. Then Avvie spotted the hanboks on other visitors and decided on her own that she had to try. “We both had a blast picking out coordinating ensembles,” Izon says, “and the resulting photos of the two of us in our matching hanboks are definitely framers.”
HiKR Ground, a K-Pop and Korean culture hub run by the Korean government, turned out to be exactly the kind of place that works for both a tween and her mother without either having to compromise. Avvie filmed K-Pop videos on elaborate sets. They both tried doughnuts from Knotted, a popular local chain with a location inside the building. The afternoon was a success on everyone’s terms.
The Olive Young stops were, by definition, numerous. Korea’s dominant health and beauty chain has locations everywhere, and Avvie had opinions about all of them. Izon, who came prepared with skincare research, understood early that walking into these stores without a plan is its own kind of chaos. “It’s very helpful to research brands and products ahead of time,” she advises. “These shops are enormous, and it’s easier to browse if you know specifically what skin concerns you’re looking to address or makeup brands to try.”
Moments to remember
But the experience Izon returns to most often when she thinks about the trip is quieter than any of this. Alice arranged for them to sit with a caricature artist on their first guided day, the kind of cozy, cartoonish shop that feels distinctly Korean. While the artist worked, Izon and Avvie sat together, reflecting on their days in the city. “The resulting sketch, with both of our cheesy grins, might be my favorite souvenir from the trip,” Izon says.
There is a particular quality to parenting a 10-year-old that is almost impossible to describe from the outside. The age straddles two entirely different kinds of personhood, the goofy, wide-eyed child and the more interior, opinionated middle-schooler, sometimes within the same afternoon. In Seoul, Avvie moved between carefully selecting lip gloss at Olive Young and shrieking with genuine delight at the Starfield Library. This soaring bookcase installation stops most visitors in their tracks, regardless of age.
“Watching my daughter intently choose a lip gloss at Olive Young and then later that day, shriek with glee when she first saw the photogenic Starfield Library really drove the point home that she contains multitudes,” Izon says. “Sometimes it’s only when you break out from your routines that you’re really able to see your child’s personality evolving.”
Where they stayed and getting around
Juliet and Avvie stayed at The Shilla, a five-star hotel in central Seoul, chosen for its reasonable rate, a central location that was neither chaotic nor crowded, and a breakfast buffet of almost bewildering scale. “The buffet was one of the largest I’ve ever seen and had everything from fresh-made soufflé pancakes to dim sum,” Izon says. It also served as a daily introduction to Korean dishes she could then look for later in the day.
Getting around Seoul mostly meant Uber, which proved affordable given the current exchange rate, affordable enough that a car and driver for the full trip would have been worth it in retrospect. But Uber came with a caveat, learned the hard way on day one. A miskeyed address sent them to a quiet residential neighborhood forty minutes from their actual destination, a popular bakery in Seongsu. It was a daytime mistake in a safe area, and Avvie handled the detour without drama. “Avvie, to her credit, kept her cool, which made the experience far less stressful,” Izon says. The lesson: double-check the route before confirming any ride.
Tips for traveling to Seoul with kids
Seoul is enormous, and the most important preparation is deciding in advance how to divide the time between cultural sites, kid-targeted activities, and the slower hours of wandering. There are limits to how many palaces a 10-year-old can absorb in a day. Two, spread across two visits, proved to be the right number for Avvie. There is no such clear ceiling on K-Beauty stores.
Download a translation app before you land. Most shop and restaurant staff do not speak English, and neither will your Uber driver. Learn a few words of Korean: the effort is noticed and appreciated. And hire a guide, at least for part of the trip. The two days with Alice were the most textured and memorable of their four days in the city, not because the solo days were wasted, but because the guided days set a standard for what understanding a place can feel like.
“It’s most important to plan out what you want to do ahead of time, and how you want to spread that out between cultural excursions, kid-focused activities, and time to wander,” Izon says. Then leave enough time in the afternoon schedule for an unexpected trip.
The trip was, in its own way, exactly what a published book deserves to celebrate.
The costs
Flights: $1,728 (Tokyo to Seoul, Seoul to New York). Hotels: $1,400 for four nights. Guide: $2,250 USD per person.
For Juliet and Avvie, Seoul turned out to be more than a quick add-on. It was a place where a mother could watch her tween grow, where K-Beauty and ancient palaces coexisted, and where a promised trip to Tokyo became a memory that will frame their walls for years to come.
