Emergency in Korea

If you get sick or injured

Calling an ambulance

Dial 119. The ambulance is run by the fire department and is free, including for foreign visitors — you will not be billed for the ride. 119 works from any phone, even one with no SIM or no local number.

Say your location first, not your symptoms. If you can't name where you are, read out the nearest convenience store sign or subway exit number — those are unique enough for dispatch to find you.

Going to the emergency room yourself

Ask for the 응급실 (eung-geup-sil). Bring your passport. Large university hospitals in Seoul have international clinics with English-speaking staff, but their ER is also the busiest — for something minor, a regular clinic (의원) during the day is faster and far cheaper.

Without Korean national health insurance you pay the full amount up front, and an ER visit costs several times what an insured resident pays. Always ask for an itemised receipt — you will need it for your travel insurance claim.

Pharmacies and minor problems

Pharmacies (약국) handle a lot of what would be a doctor visit elsewhere, and pharmacists can recommend medication directly. Most close in the evening, but convenience stores sell basic painkillers and cold medicine 24 hours.

If you lose something

Korea has an unusually high return rate for lost property — genuinely, phones and wallets come back often. It is worth reporting even when you assume it's gone.

• Anywhere: report at the nearest police box (파출소 / 지구대) or online at lost112.go.kr, the national police lost-property portal. Found items nationwide are registered there.
• On the subway: go to the station office first — subway operators run their own lost and found, separate from the police system.
• In a taxi: your card receipt or the app record has the vehicle number. Without it, tracing is very hard — so take a receipt.
• Passport:report to the police, get the report document, then contact your embassy for an emergency travel document. Do this the same day if you're flying soon.

If you get lost

Google Maps does not give walking or driving directions properly in Korea — this catches almost every visitor. Download Naver Map or Kakao Map before you need them; both have English interfaces.

To tell someone where you are, the most reliable landmarks are subway exit numbers ("Hongdae Station exit 9") and convenience store branch names printed on the shopfront. Korean addresses are hard to read out loud, but every building has a blue or white plaque with the road-name address — photographing that plaque and showing it to a taxi driver works.

If it's late and you're stranded, walk into a convenience store. Staff will let you use the phone and the store name is a locatable address.

If someone is missing

Call 112immediately. Korea has no waiting period before you can report a missing person — the "wait 24 hours" rule you may have heard of elsewhere does not apply here, and reporting early matters most.

182 is the dedicated missing-persons line, useful for follow-up and for cases involving children or vulnerable adults. For an urgent disappearance, still call 112 first.

Korea is blanketed with CCTV, which is the main reason missing-person cases resolve quickly — but footage is only useful if police start looking early. Have a recent photo and what they were wearing ready.

Korean phrases to show someone

Tap any card to fill the screen, then show your phone to the person helping you.