Located right off of one of the busiest streets here, Yulgok, the palace entrance can be found on this road, but there is also a back entrance as well, but that’s quite a bit away as this area is huge.
The place was definitely more accessible than most places I’ve been to in other countries where you really couldn’t get super close to most places to see the insides of the buildings as they’re lined off and such, or there’s a net or something to obstruct the view. Here, no such issue, albeit, you still can’t really go inside these places, but still, quite up and personal for the majority of the buildings.
It is a bit confusing as there’s several places to visit in this park, but each place needs a separate ticket to get in. If your plan is to go through all of the places, or go from one end of this very large area to the other, you’ll have to at least enter both the palace area halves, though, these are both the cheaper tickets. The Secret Garden ticket alone costs more than both combined.
All 3 areas have their appeals. I will reference them according to Joseon Kdramas as the measuring stick.
The side where you enter in from Yulgok is the area mostly where you see military training areas, but courtyards, etc. The other side is where all the palaces for where royalty stay are and also those huge gardens where the king will walk through usually. The secret garden has a lot of the secret meeting places, by lakes, in random tea areas to discuss strategies, or something to that effect.
Overall, especially if you like Kdramas of the Joseon era, this is quite the accessible place to get your nerd on. If you just want to sight see an appreciate history, this is also a great place for that.