When I was in Seoul, I saw a foreigner visiting Korea stopped, looking at Naver Maps. Being naturally helpful, I approached them. They were looking for a famous Korean cafe, and the search results showed five or six stores with similar names: the Main Branch, Gangnam Station Branch, Hongdae 2nd Branch, Seongsu Branch, and a branch inside a shopping mall. The foreigner asked me, "Are these all the same store?"
Yes and no. They are the same brand, but Koreans naturally know that the menu, atmosphere, and operating hours can differ depending on which branch you go to. However, from a foreigner's perspective, there seemed to be no criteria to judge which of the many search results was the "real" one. It required a lot of explanation.
While this problem might seem minor, it highlights a fundamental difficulty foreigners face when using map apps in Korea. People often explain that foreigners struggle with Naver Maps due to Korean language or English support issues. That's partly true. As of 2026, Naver Maps does offer some English interface support, but not all store information is smoothly translated into English. But the real problem comes after that. Even if the language issue is somewhat resolved, foreigners still get lost. Why?
I think the answer is simple. It's not that Naver Maps is difficult; it's that Korea's place information structure is designed in a way that is too familiar to us.
We almost unconsciously interpret the words attached to store names. If it says "Main Branch," it's the original store, and usually has the most diverse menu. If it says "Station Branch," it means it's inside or right next to a subway station, offering good accessibility but possibly smaller seating. If it says "OO Mall Branch," it's located inside a department store or shopping mall, so its operating hours follow the building's. A "2nd Branch" or "Satellite Branch" might have a slightly different concept from the main branch. We know all this without ever being explicitly taught. It's just something you naturally pick up when you're born and live in Korea, right?
But foreigners visiting Korea have to interpret each of these one by one. And all at once on the search results screen. Where is the main branch? What does "station branch" mean? Why do stores with the same name have different ratings? They have to make all these judgments before or during their trip. It's not a lack of information, but rather that there's too much information, and they lack the automatic filtering criteria that we have in our minds.
A similar disconnect happens with reviews. Our reviews usually focus on taste, price, waiting time, atmosphere, and interior. This is sufficient information for someone with some dining experience in Korea. However, foreign travelers are curious about different things. Do they have menus in their language? Can they pay by card? Is the kiosk only in Korean? Is it awkward to go alone? Even with many reviews, the information foreigners truly want is often missing.
One more confusing point is that Korean stores aren't just on the ground floor, roadside. They can be in a basement food court, a single unit in a 4th-floor office building, a cafe converted from a house in an alley, or a booth in a 6th-floor shopping mall food court – incredibly diverse forms. We can roughly guess, "Oh, this is a store inside a building," just by looking at the address, but for foreigners, it's hard to tell if it's a standalone building or a unit within a building from the address alone. So, even after arriving at the store, they often pause again, wondering, "Is this the right place?"
Operating hours are also information that Koreans process unconsciously. When we see notations like 11:30-15:00, 17:00-22:00, we immediately know that the empty time in between is a break time. For foreigners, it's initially confusing whether these are two separate operating hours, if it closes in between, or if it's a different store for lunch and dinner. The same goes for last order notations.
So, for foreigners to get lost less on Naver Maps, it's much faster to learn the order of what to check first, rather than learning how to use the app. Here are the criteria I've summarized from my experience meeting foreigners in Seoul:
First, searching by copying the Korean store name exactly is more accurate than using English. Korean stores often don't have standardized English spellings.
Second, always check the branch name. Decide first whether to go to the main branch, a station branch, or a mall branch.
Third, look at the nearest subway station and exit number rather than the address. In Korea, this is more intuitive.
And photos. Even when looking at interior photos, it's best to view ones uploaded within the last month. More stores change their entrances or signs than you might think, and relying on old photos can genuinely lead to not finding the place.
Finally, operating hours. If you see notations like 11:30-15:00 followed by 17:00-22:00, the time in between is almost 100% break time. And the last order might be 30 minutes earlier than that.
Ultimately, what's difficult for foreigners isn't the Naver Maps app itself. It's the fact that the information the app displays is tailored to us (Koreans). It's not a problem solved by changing the tool; rather, understanding how Korean places are categorized and described makes the tool truly useful. This is something good for both foreign travelers and for us who guide them to know.