Strollers In Korea

Korea is NOT stroller friendly. That being said, you still absolutely need strollers in Korea. 

Let me explain. 

Oftentimes you’ll see articles of people stating Korea is not stroller friendly and that they instead recommend using a baby carrier. Yes, that answer may be sufficient if your child is younger than 2 years old but what if your kids are 3-7 years old and weigh way more than your back can handle for hours?

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That’s where this article comes in.

First, I want to lay out the challenges you’ll face before delving into why you still need strollers in Korea.

• When traveling in Korea, you’ll most likely walk, use public transportation (e.g. bus, subway), express train, or taxi. In every single situation, using strollers in Korea is a challenge.
  • Walking:
    • While half the streets of Korea are well paved, the other half is quite cobbled with stairs everywhere to boot. When your child weighs more, it can be difficult to get over bumps and dips in the road, so you should really be careful your child does not fall out accidentally (highly doubtful they still fit within their seatbelts in their strollers) or experience whiplash.
    • Also, with kids 3-7 years old, it’s quite possible they don’t even comfortably fit in your old strollers anymore. My kids had to really bend their legs to keep their feet on the foot rest and the backs of their heads would hit the very top of the handle bar if they weren’t careful.
  • Bus:
    • You need to be prepared to avoid rush hour at all costs (8-10am and 4-6pm). The most likely scenario is one parent will get the kids situated on the bus and the other will have to fold up the strollers and get it on the bus.
    • No matter how you spin it, strollers take a lot of room and during rush hour, it will be a tight squeeze to even get yourselves in let alone strollers. 
  • Subway:
    • Same thing here. Try to avoid rush hour at all costs. The added difficulty here is that the doors to the subway open and close pretty quickly. I’d recommend getting the kids out of the stroller, having the stroller folded up and ready to rush in as soon as people exit the subway.
    • In addition, subways have minimal escalators and elevators. You might see some videos here and there showing them in Korea, but trust me, it’s scarce and if you do want to find it, you’d have to walk around quite a bit.
    • Also for whatever reason, when you get in or out of a subway there’s this inherent rush so you sometimes forget all about trying to find one. Again here, one parent will have to assist the kids getting up and down the steep stairs and the other may have to lug the strollers up and down.
    • If you decide to take 2 separate strollers, prepare to have the kids to walk up and down alone while the parents carry one each. Please make sure they take it slow and hold the railing! I don’t know if it’s the rush of everyone around us, but my kids always started rushing too, but that can be really dangerous.
  • Express Train:
    • This transportation mode was the least stressful. There are specific areas of the train where you can load luggage and strollers. If your exit isn’t the last stop of the train, I’d recommend one parent getting near the strollers prior to your stop to exit because while the stops are longer than at subways, it’s not THAT much longer.
  • Taxi:
    • You would think, worst case scenario, I’ll just take taxis everywhere with our strollers. WRONG. Taxis ended up being our worst nightmare. A lot of Korean taxis use LPG gas tanks. I had never heard of this until I opened the trunk of a taxi to store our strollers. It’s a huge tank that takes up half the room of the trunk. What this means is that there is no way you can fit 2 strollers in a Korean taxi trunk, unless they are both slim umbrella strollers.
    • Also, the taxi drivers will not let you keep one in the backseat with you either. So for a family of 4 traveling with 2 strollers, this most likely means you’ll have to separate just to transport the stroller and take 2 taxis.
• Most restaurants want you to park the stroller outside. Because of this, we didn’t leave any valuables in the stroller and they were pretty beat up after years of use anyway. 
• If you are thinking about double strollers in Korea, I would not recommend it unless it can get very compact when folded down. If it’s still pretty bulky this completely eliminates taxis as a possibility. Also, we as a family prefer 2 separate strollers. Our kids are just so heavy now and their combined weight is a lot for one adult to push all day long. 
• Don’t be surprised if a lot of adults, especially grandmas, comment on your kids being way too old for strollers. Yes, we know they are, but as a visitor you still need them. Koreans have no qualms about sharing their comments and opinions with strangers. So don’t feel insulted and just ignore it. Also, there are hardly any Korean kids in strollers. Most kids around 3-7 years old are walking around with their parents. It’s such a different cultural norm to see this, but it is what it is.

Even with all these challenges listed above, here are the reasons you still need to use strollers in Korea.

• Keeping up:
  • Young kids not used to walking as much simply will not be able to keep up. For example, my kids who are 4 and 6 years old can’t even walk a full American mall without lagging, getting lost, or whining the whole time. If you as an adult want to keep up with an itinerary and see the sights, you need strollers in Korea to keep your kids moving along.
• Vehicle safety:
  • Motorcycles and cars in Korea do not believe in the right of way for pedestrians. Vehicles seem to come first in Korea. I found it strange that they drive so slow on the highways but so fast on the local streets. Cars will speed around corners and tight local streets and motorcycles will cruise through sidewalks dangerously. To keep your young kids from getting into an accident, strollers in Korea are a great way to keep an eye on them and from getting hurt.
• Jet lag:
  • Jet lag tends to be a lot more difficult for the kids. The first week, my kids would constantly fall asleep in their strollers mid-travel, especially in the late afternoons. I honestly don’t know the last time they did this in the states. Again, if you don’t want to cut your day short at 2-4pm everyday, sometimes the quick power nap in the stroller makes all the difference for your kids to reboot.
• Stroller perks:
  • The baskets underneath strollers can be really clutch. My kids still backwash so I like to give them their own bottles of water instead of sharing. We also had jackets, snacks, and shopping bags that we carried. In the chaos of getting around, the baskets underneath took such a burden off our shoulders. I would recommend putting everything in one big plastic or reusable bag so that when you have to fold up your stroller, it’s easy to get everything out at once.
• Alternative transportation:
  • To get around the challenge of splitting taxis or taking public transportation, there is an option to spend more on a large van. We had to have our hotel call this for us or find a vendor online. We couldn’t figure out how to call for a specific size taxi via Kakao Taxi.  For reference, we spent about $110-120 for a 7 seater van that could fit 2 check-ins, 2 carry-ons, 2 strollers, 2 kids, and 2 adults from Myeongdong to Incheon Airport. Please note, some smaller cities do not have large taxi vans at all.
• Decompression:
  • Everything was simply more enjoyable for our kids with strollers in Korea. Even at their age, I think they feel overstimulated sometimes and being able to quietly sit in their stroller and pull the canopies down gave them some time to decompress.

Final Tips

Just for reference, these are the two strollers we took to Korea. We’ve had them since they were babies/toddlers. I just refused to buy more considering I’m trying to shed baby items, not gain more at this point.

They both worked relatively well. They recline and have decent sized baskets underneath. The Chicco has a huge canopy and cup holder. The Summer Infant better fit our 55 lb. 6 year old and also has a cup holder attached. 

Chicco Bravo Quick-Fold Stroller

Summer Infant 3Dlite Convenience Stroller

Now if I was inclined to purchase another one for my older kids, I would have chosen these. The Joovy can hold up to a maximum weight of 75 lbs and the Chicco can hold up to 55 lbs. Another feature these both have is the one wheel in front that many jogging strollers have. This would definitely improve maneuverability in the bumpy streets of Korea. 

Joovy Zoom360 Ultralight Jogging Stroller

Chicco TRE Jogging Stroller

My final recommendation would be, if you have the option, go with family and friends! The more adults on the trip definitely helps with the safety and lugging of the strollers. But more importantly, it made our trip much more enjoyable and just overall gave us more moral support.

Hope this helps!