Check the room’s Wi-Fi
Many Korean properties include Wi-Fi, but coverage and performance vary by room and network. The hard numbers Korea publishes are for hotspot networks rather than hotels, so they do not establish the speed available in your room. The 2025 telecommunications quality assessment from the Ministry of Science and ICT (과학기술정보통신부) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA) measured average download speeds of:
| Network | Download | Year before |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier hotspots, own subscribers | 408 Mbps | 375 |
| Carrier hotspots opened to other networks | 427 Mbps | 415 |
| Public wifi, open to anyone | 400 Mbps | 464 |
| Subway carrier wifi | 67 Mbps | 59 |
National 5G averaged 974 Mbps and LTE 96 Mbps in the same assessment, and these figures do not predict an individual hotel connection. Two qualifications: public wifi got slower this year, not faster, and of 1,269 advertised wifi locations checked, 41 could not be connected to at all. A listed access point is not a working one.
Check amenities separately from the star rating
Korea grades hotels one to five stars under a scoring system run by the Korea Tourism Organization (한국관광공사) for the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (문화체육관광부), under the grading rule in force since 1 July 2026. A hotel needs 40% of the marks for one star, 50% for two, 65% for three, 80% for four and 90% for five. In that table, in-room internet is a single line scored like a light switch — provided, full marks; not provided, zero. What it is not is mandatory: emergency equipment on the same page is marked "required" (필수), and a hotel fails without it; in-room internet is not, so a graded hotel can lawfully have no room wifi and still be a two-star. Check the specific room’s amenity list rather than relying on its star grade.
The same table scores things worth knowing before you pack. A staffed laundry service takes full marks, a self-service laundry room about half, and many mid-range hotels have the self-service room, which is useful on a long trip. An in-room safe scores fully only if every room has one. And the graded convenience list — two sets of room clothes, a kettle, two pairs of slippers, seven hangers, a minibar, a notepad, a hair dryer — is scored by how many of it a hotel stocks, which is why those items come and go between properties.
Power, air purifiers, linen and room size
Power is 220 volts, 60 Hz, two round pins, fixed by law. There is no second consumer voltage in ordinary use, so a UK, US or Australian plug needs an adapter and an appliance rated only for 110–120 volts cannot be used with a plug adapter alone — “Charging, plugs, power banks, and airline rules for them” has the socket drawn.
If you need an air purifier, ask the property before booking and confirm whether it can reserve one for your room. Availability and charges vary. See “Air quality and fine dust (미세먼지)” for an explanation of air-quality readings.
Linen is changed for every guest by law: the hygiene rules under the Public Health Control Act (공중위생관리법 시행규칙) require the covers on quilts, mattresses and pillows, and the towels, to be changed each time a new guest uses them, and a residence-type property to have a bathroom or shower in every room and cooking facilities in the room or a shared kitchen.
Some city-centre rooms are compact, and a “double” describes the bed or occupancy rather than a guaranteed room size. Read the stated area rather than the photograph.
Ask the desk first
Ask reception about equipment loans. Some properties lend adapters, chargers or irons; ask what is available and whether a deposit is required. It is a normal request, not an imposition, and the phrase is 빌릴 수 있어요? — can I borrow one? A plug adapter and a voltage converter serve different purposes; check which your device needs before using it.
Wifi outside the room
You are rarely far from a network. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety's national free-wifi register carries 69,230 access points — fixed public repeaters installed by local governments, open to anyone. Its scope note is the important bit: it excludes wifi on buses and subway trains, and it excludes carrier hotspots that serve only their own subscribers, so the networks named T wifi zone, KT GiGA WiFi and U+zone are generally not open to a visitor. Korea is simply a connected country by habit: internet use among people aged three and over is 94.5%, and cafés, convenience stores, stations and department stores all assume you are online. What actually works on the street is “Public wifi in Korea: what actually works”.
