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Hannam2026.08.26

What to actually do in Hannam and Itaewon, Seoul

Everyone calls it Seoul's coolest neighborhood, and it still came last when one Korean outlet ranked five Seoul districts by foreign spending. That gap is not a warning — it is the instruction manual.

What to actually do in Hannam and Itaewon, SeoulWhat to actually do in Hannam and Itaewon, Seoul — photo 2

People tell you Hannam is the neighborhood to see, then nobody tells you what you are supposed to do once you are standing on the hill. The short answer is that you walk one street, you eat, and you keep an appointment. Hannam is not a shopping district that happens to be beautiful — it is a booking district that happens to have shops.

The figures below come from Korean market and government reporting published between May 2025 and July 2026, each dated where the date matters, and read as of August 2026.

  1. 01It came last in one outlet's foreign-spending ranking of five Seoul districts, and that is the useful factIn the first half of 2026, tax-refund sales to foreign shoppers in 한남·이태원 (Hannam–Itaewon) came to ₩32.4 billion, up 9% — the smallest total and the slowest growth of the five districts Newsspace picked and lined up in its own ranking feature (July 2026), against Myeongdong ₩326.5 billion (+39%), Seongsu ₩138.4 billion (+88%), Hongdae ₩130 billion (+16%) and Dosan–Garosugil ₩36.7 billion (+54%). Same crowds on the street, about a tenth of Myeongdong's receipts. Read it as a plan rather than a verdict: shop where the refund counters are, and give this neighborhood your appointments and your walking hours.
  2. 02Shopkeepers here say six in ten of their customers are foreign, and the empty storefronts filled up inside a yearShopkeepers in 한남동 (Hannam-dong) describe roughly six of every ten customers as foreign, and say the handful of people who used to come up out of 한강진역 (Hangangjin Station) now arrives a hundred at a time (Newsis, May 2026). The property numbers move the same way: for small retail units between Hangangjin and 이태원역 (Itaewon Station), Korea Real Estate Board data shows vacancy falling from 13.9% in Q4 2024 to 3.9% in Q4 2025. Many Chinese visitors turn up with a 샤오홍수 (小红书, Xiaohongshu) list already made.
  3. 03The walk is 꼼데가르송길 — Hangangjin Station up to the Cheil Worldwide buildingLocals name the stretch after a shop on it: 꼼데가르송길 (Comme des Garçons-gil), running from 한강진역 (Hangangjin Station) to the 제일기획 (Cheil Worldwide) headquarters. What sits along it is why a beauty trip ends up here at all — fragrance and hand-care flagships such as 탬버린즈 (tamburins) and 논픽션 (Nonfiction) standing between 무신사 스탠다드 (Musinsa Standard), 비이커 (Beaker), 마리떼 프랑소와 저버 (Marithé François Girbaud), The North Face, Diesel and Alo, with 맥심플랜트 (Maxim Plant) for the coffee stop (Tenant News, December 2025). It is one line you can walk end to end, not a grid you get lost in.
  4. 04Retail went from a quarter of the street to nearly half in a single yearThe tenant mix here flipped fast: food and drink 70% against retail 25% in December 2023, then food and drink 50% against retail 45% in December 2024 (Tenant News, December 2025). Rents followed. Comparing Q4 2025 with Q4 2024, Seongsu, Dosan and Hannam saw the sharpest rises in Seoul — typically 20–30%, and more than 70% on the best corners (Korea Fashion & Textile News, December 2025). The practical consequence for you: a shop you saved from someone's feed six months ago may be a different brand now, so check it is open the week you go.
  5. 05The busiest week is early May, and one Hannam flagship took 87% of it from foreign customersAcross Japan's Golden Week (29 April–6 May 2026) and China's Labour Day holiday (1–5 May 2026), about 220,000 travellers came to Korea from the two countries — 112,000 from Japan (+52.9%) and 108,000 from China (+29.9%), up 40.7% on the year before, according to figures the culture ministry and the Korea Tourism Organization released on 8 May 2026. In Hannam over that stretch, the 몽클로스 (MONCLOS) flagship took 53% more than a year earlier, and 87% of it came from foreign customers (Sports Kyunghyang, May 2026). If your dates land in that week, assume every appointment is gone until a shop confirms otherwise.
  6. 06Seoul's foreign card spending piles into three districts, and Yongsan is not one of themForeign visitors put roughly ₩5 trillion through cards in Seoul in the first half of 2026, and three districts absorbed 65% of it — Gangnam-gu 29.3%, Jung-gu (Myeongdong) 28.4%, Mapo-gu 7.3%. 용산구 (Yongsan-gu), the district Hannam and Itaewon belong to, does not appear in that briefing at all (Financial News, July 2026, citing the Seoul metropolitan government). By sector the same data reads shopping 46.4%, medical and wellness 24.4%, food and beverage 13.1%, lodging 10.7%. So buy in Myeongdong if buying is the point, and keep Hannam for the things that never turn into a duty-free receipt.
  7. 07Beauty was one of the fastest-rising categories in Seoul's foreign card spendingIn April 2026 alone, foreign visitors spent ₩1.1532 trillion on cards in Seoul, up 50.5% on the same month a year earlier. Within that month, shopping malls rose 62.5% (₩245.2 billion), medical tourism 59.2% (₩192.1 billion) and beauty 35.0% (Hankyung, May 2026). Those category names come from a different breakdown than the half-year figures above, so do not stack the two sets on top of each other — the direction is the point. Book before you fly, not once you are standing on the hill.
  8. 08Food was half the street at the last count, so build the day around one table and one chairAt the last published count — December 2024 — eating and drinking still held about half the tenant mix, though the same survey notes fashion retail kept gaining through 2025 (Tenant News, December 2025). Restaurant sales in the core stretch that includes 꼼데가르송길 were reported growing around 15% a year as of 2025 (Edaily Marketin, May 2025). Give the day exactly two fixed points, one table and one chair, and hand the rest of it to the street. Put the appointment in the middle, walk the hill before it, and eat after — the neighborhood is small enough that nothing else needs a plan.

Sources

Written by millio from the reporting linked below. Follow the links for the originals.

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