Seoul Travel Forum

Hi,

I will be in Seoul in July and I am woundering what will be best
1) have my own cellular with roaming service (it costs around $3/month + very high international rates). or
2) purchase calling (or phone) cards in Seoul and if you think that is the best choice, could you please tell me what cards are available and which one are the best. or
3) rent a mobile phone with a SIM. or
4) rent a SIM alone.

Please advise :)

As far as I remember from my trip there, you can rent a mobile directly at the airport, if you need one.

Your first option depends whether you actually have a phone that works in Korea - does it use CDMA standard? Most other countries don't use this standard, but more expensive and newer phones support CDMA as well.
If you wanna rent and use a local sim card you also have to make sure that it fit's into your mobile. Lots of korean phones actually don't have a sim-card; if they do, it might also be a smaller one.
Renting a phone at the airport costs you around 3000W per day plus 100W/text and 100W/10sec calling. They offer half the price if you've already taken their services; so I guess there is room for bargaining as well (not too sure though).
If your phone doesn't support CDMA the best option might be to either rent a phone at the airport, or (depending on how long you wanna stay) buy a used phone in Seoul. There are a lot of reliable vendors everywhere, and a decent phone can be bought starting from like US$40.

If you are just there for a visit, I think it is most convenient to just rent a phone at the airport.

Check out: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/RE/RE_EN_1_2_4_1.jsp for more details.