NAVER Map, Navigation App Reviews

Despite what the description says, this App is not available in English.

Great for finding bus routes, but an English interface would be very much appreciated.

Where is the language option...?

Overall good app with one fatal flaw: no landscape view. Maps stay in portrait even when iPad is sideways. 이것만 고쳐주시면 거의 완벽할듯.

Nobody knows what Im saying

This app helps find places in South Korea. Though, you have to know Korean.

One of the most useful apps to survive in South Korea. Route planning with avoiding traffic jams saved me so much time!

There must be different views personally but it is good enough for 4 stars to me. 1 star is left for keeping going better!

I dont wanna say its useless but there are some places that dont exist anymore on the map. I had to go thru one night homeless thx to this.

My phone crashed for the first time while using this app, and still does that when I have this app running in the background. Hmm... Dont know what Im supposed to do

How can I change language on this apps. It is so hard to use this apps on korean language. I need to use on english language. Plz send me details. However can I change settings.

Since Google Maps hasnt updated since 2009 in South Korea, you better download this one. Although its only in Korean, you can get by it with basic Korean. I mean some may complain that there isnt an English version but this is a Korean app for maps in South Korea. Might as well learn some Korean if you are visiting the country.

Great map, but it uses too much battery.

After a certain amount of time the map and roadview does not load...cant figure out why.

I was in Seoul for a month and I relied on Naver maps everyday to get me around. Granted it is not flawless but I don’t understand the massive whining about this app. Yes, it got me messed up a few time but it was absolutely better than nothing. Once I learned my way around the public transportation I used it to check bus and train times which were insanely accurate and the walking part of Naver was great. It directed me to all the places I needed to see. So I give it five stars because it was a great app for the month I used it. I didn’t give up after the first time it got something wrong. I kept at it and with the help of the app and the kind Korean people I was able to have a wonderful experience. 🇺🇸

just not very good

Naver randomly locked me out of / suspended me from my account and then when I submitted a ticket on their online help portal in order to get it unlocked along with my passport information and such, I received an email saying “restriction. If the account that was signed up abnormally has been checked, we guess that someone uses others' information illegally. Hence, NAVER blocks the account to avoid extra damage. For that reason, We can't unblock the login restriction. You create a new NAVER account from a different place or in a secured network environment to use NAVER services.” All I did was sign up with my U.S. phone number and the next day my account was permanently locked with no hope of unlocking it. Completely unhelpful and quite frankly, annoying. Only download this app if you’re in Korea with a Korean number. The app itself is fine but these login issues are well documented, unresolved, and extremely unwarranted. Very upset with my experience, especially after providing personal documentation to unlock my account and being told to make a new one even though my number and email are now associated with a locked account. I want to still see my account unlocked. ID: ryankbr

Even when you switch to English it won’t let you lookup an address or city in English.

진짜

非常烂非常差天天瞎导航

自带中文，导航清晰，不管是步行还是公共交通出行都很准确，出国旅行必备。

넘나 불편스 합니다

I can’t log into the app because the Facebook login is not working. Please fix it soon. I have way too many saved bookmark collections to create a new account.

My favorites on my map disappear every month. Everything just disappears. I've tried logging in and out. Nothing works. I have to delete and redownload the app every time this happens. Awful

Naver is an impressivley poorly designed app for a tech conglomerate in 2025. Sadly. You have no choice in Korea. It is the only english language navigation app in korea. Here is how to use this atrocious app and use Google Maps 80% of the time. What you will use Google maps for: 1. Walking directions for short distances in Alleys. It does not do point to point guidance, but is easier to use than Naver when navigating alleys and small streets 2. Restaurant reviews. Naver does not have review scores for most restaurants, so you cannot sort by review and it will not translate all the reviews for you the way Google Maps does, so just use Google maps, catch table, or Michelin guide for reviews. 3. Find your destination on Google Maps and once you’re ready to navigate there, first try to put the name into Naver. Naver needs an EXACT match to its database, so a place like “The Matcha” will not show up on Naver because on Naver it is called “The Metcha.” You could never know this, so you will first try the place name from google, then copy the places address, then try the names and addresses of places around your destination till something shows up in Naver. Yes, I’m serious. This is a big reason why Naver is a one star app. When to use Naver 1. Point to point directions with a car, public transit, or walking longer distances across larger roads. 2. When walking, know that Naver seems to just put you on the road, so it won’t cut through parks. Like in Namsan it told me to walk 20 minutes along the park perimeter like a car would instead of taking the 5 minutes along walking path inside the park. Luckily Namsan tower park has maps so you can figure out. And cause you’re reading you know Naver walking directions are garbage. 3. When walking, know that Naver estimates are super inflated. A 30 minute estimate is likely 15-20 minutes max. You’ll see on the map it treat walking like a car with u-turns etc., so you can easily shave off a third just by looking where actual pedestrian walking paths are. 4. Getting to the airport. This messed me up badly. Naver will tell you how long the Airport bus normally takes if you take the optimal bus. So it will tell you 1 hour. But when you hit start navigation, Naver will recalculate and it might actually be 2 hours which is what happened to me. The night before the estimate was arrive at 1:10 if I leave my Airbnb at 11:50. Then at 11:50 I hit start and it tells me I will actually get there at 2:30 because it’s on the incoming bus from the airport that needs to drop everyone off before going back to the airport. This is known though. It’s in the bus schedule. How is this even possible to get wrong? I don’t know. But then I had to spend $50 on a tax all because of Naver. To the Devs: Stop being stingy with your API calls. It’s the main reason the user experience is terrible. If you get all the estimated times for car, public transit, and walking in the initial request people can choose the best option for them. Continue calling every minute for how much time is left till the user gets to their destination so they can see how far they are. Just locally translate all reviews to the device language on the client side there is no experience reason to force a user to translate per comment. Also put the “re-center” button on the right side. 85% of users are right handed and that is the most used button when in navigation.

급해서 택시가 지하철보다 빠르길래 40분 소요된대서 탔더니 길 내내 막히고 거의 두 배 가량 걸렸습니다

We recently traveled to Korea and rented a car. This app was a life saver!! To try to navigate in a new country and in Korean was a challenge but this app was the easiest to figure out and user friendly. Make sure you give yourself a few minutes to play with it and it would be a great addition to your trip.

I have been trying to sign into my account which I already previously had before I got the app… and it just won’t let my bypass the stupid screening question.. I type in the answer and it will just reset my log in… pleas fix this issue

GPS can't even tell you the right direction you're walking for several minutes. I doubt the LocationKit docs in Korean are more difficult than the ones in English.

Look to google maps for how to be a good map application. This is so wonky.

clunky, slow, badly designed version of google maps that unfortunately you are forced to use in south korea cause every non korean navigation app is obsolete here at least the infrastructure here makes up for what this app lacks

When I was living in Korea this app was useful for me every day. I preferred it to KakaoMap. The driving directions in particular are very good.

Stupid developers.

Apple CarPlay support is nice, but the refresh/recalculation rate is very slow. If you miss a turn, it takes forever to recalculate and by the time it does, you’ve most likely missed the next turn already. Takes the longest route known to mankind. The speed alerts are annoying also.

Please NAVER download this app…

Title

The worst map app in the world

I attempted to create an account with an American phone # with T-Mobile, but the verification codes wouldn’t even send, and the number wasn’t ever blocked from T-Mobile to begin with. I was on the phone with T-Mobile for an hour only to find this out, and even still couldn’t get it to work. There were no more options within the app, such as verification through email, and I’m out of luck in regards to this.

How is there STILL no dark mode? I really love everything about this app except how it blinds me with its light mode screen when I use it at night. Slowly making my transition to TMap.

Refuses to give directions from the airport.

In every way possible

Only downloaded this because Google maps doesn’t work well in South Korea for some reason. If you can get the address it works fine, and it driving it will point out traffic cameras which is good. However most of the time, it will not work. I’m guessing maybe it’s because I’m a foreigner and I type in English. You can’t put spaces. Most things are misspelled. If I literally put “SeoulTower” it would say “location not found”. I hope Google updates their maps in South Korea so that nobody has to download naver.

If I could just get it to not be in Korean and in English I think this app would be great :(

Would not let me login with last trip user ID Created new one with phone number verified then suspend my login in less than 24 hours saying I am from a suspicious network. Can’t recover account. Cannot login. Wry few and little English. Complete garbage if you are not Korean in Korean with a Korean phone number and a Korean ID Update: Complete trash. Requested customer support on their website and they respond in Korean. Had to use g translate. And it says sorry you are in an unsafe location (in the USA with t mobile and att!!! That is unsafe!!!) Says nothing else. Do not use. Do not submit any official document for customer service. You will give up your ID and privacy for garbage

No English

수서역(srt) 출발, 잠실 차병원 도착 할 수 있는 지하철 정보는 없는데 잠실차병원 출발, 수서역 도착할 수 있는 지하철 정보는 있어요 수정 바랍니다

This app is souring my time in Korea. It’s incredibly slow and half the time just won’t load. My BF also has this app and it doesn’t even work on his phone. It will map us to the wrong spots and won’t reroute if you take a wrong turn. It’s a joke. I would never recommend using this app if there’s another option. We can never find what we’re looking for. Screw this app and it’s creators.

It remains a competent option to use in Korea, along with CarPlay support. However, only voice search is available in CarPlay — no on screen keyboard.

Google Map doesn’t work well in Seoul. Kakao is the best & cab drivers uses it but navigation details is in Korean hence not useful for us (Can’t read Korean). Though NAVER is not on par with Kakao, if you work around its limitation, it’s usable & helpful for those of us who can’t read Korean.

I am absolutely confused why this app has received so many negative reviews. Maybe people are upset that this Korean app has some *gasp* Korean? Nonsense. This app showed us very accurate directions to places we needed to go. It showed us timetables of when the next train and bus was arriving, as well as accurate walking directions. There is a setting to change it to English (which is what we used), but some places (for example, restaurants) will not have an English translation and that’s okay. It wasn’t slow or buggy when we were using it in South Korea. I highly recommend this app for travel!

What ever language you select should be for the entire app and just some areas. It is hard to use this app when most words are in Korean and not selected language.

Hard to use, especially as a foreigner. Most of the app is in Korean even after changing the language to English. No choice to use because Google Maps doesn’t work well in Korea

I arrived in Seoul, Korea, three days ago and was recommended Navver by a hostel mate I met in Okinawa. Despite my initial apprehension due to some negative reviews, I decided to give it a try, and I am glad I did! Navver has proven to be a high-performing app, possibly one of the best I have used. It stands out by providing rich detail through live activities on iPhones with dynamic island support and helpful notifications on the home screen. The audio guidance is clear and precise, making navigation through the bustling streets of Seoul a breeze. What impressed me the most is Navver’s eagerness to deliver an exceptional navigation experience in a major city. The app is incredibly helpful, and I found it to be more detailed and user-friendly than Apple Maps in many aspects. My only feedback is that for those who cannot read Korean, including tourists, the station numbers are not shown in the app (additional some gate entry doesn’t match the maps guidance making hard to determine which line direction to enter). Adding station numbers would make it much easier to quickly understand one’s location and navigate to the next station, similar to the system in China. Overall, I really like the app experience. With minor adjustments, Navver has the potential to be a major competitor to Google Maps and Apple Maps. Highly recommended for anyone navigating Seoul!

I thought it was kinda funny at first that NAVER maps shows me only western food options. But for real… what kind of stupid stereotyped decision was that? I’m in Korea, show me the Korean food. No I’m not looking for burgers and pizzas.

This app is really bad, from crashing, to lagging, to not showing places on the map, to the GPS being as inaccurate as it can be. I don’t recommend it, but what option do you have? This app is pretty much a monopoly and it shows, after all it has no need to improve, why change if people are going to donwload it anyway? Well, good luck to you and may God have mercy on your soul, because Naver won’t.

맥 버전도 관리좀해줘욤

Every click is painfully slow. Search is very hard to use (English search at least) Login is buggy - had to try 3 times. I randomly get logged out ~once a day.

Did a 3 month solo travel to South Korea and I used this app every day, not kidding. My Korean is very veryyy limited and I grew up in a countryside so had no experience with public transportation or cities other than airport “subways” lol. This accurately told bus arrival times, gave detailed information and graphics for getting from one place to another, you can save restaurants and shops (even super obscure ones you wouldn’t think would be listed, I went outside of main cities a lot) in different folder types and the markings of the folder color show up on the map all together. Very helpful for planning out stations, where to eat, where you’re staying, how to get literally anywhere. I’m so grateful to this app where I didn’t have to ask any strangers directions to places, a lifesaver for introverts and anyone who isn’t versed in traveling Korea. I’ll always download it when I visit. So many grumpy reviews, yet this was a lifesaver for me!!!!

Naver was SO helpful, when I connected online it still guided me when I didn’t have my SIM card as long as I didn’t reload the app. Very helpful with bus times, numbers, and I got to school on time every day! Great app and it had English so i knew where to go!

왼쪽에 무슨 맛집 위치니 뭐니 하는 정보가 있는 혓바닥이 올라와서 그렇잖아도 좁은 지도 인터페이스의 절반에 가꺼운 영역을 차지해서 지도 불러올 때마다 신경질 내면서 이거 치우다가 지도는 또 지도대로 엉뚱한 위치로 날아가 버리는데…이것 좀 끄는 옵션 없을까요? 사용 경험이 타앱에 비해 차별화 되게 좋은 건 없는데, 이 혓바닥의 거슬림은 정말 심대하게 큽니다.

Everything is in Korean even if your default language is set to English so useless for tourists visiting plus you need to give your phone number.

There’s a lot of people complaining about glitches and things of that sort so for new people it’s all been fixed.

The only reason you’ll download this app, is because South Korea has passed legislation which makes it impossible for competitors to these local mapping and search engines. So it can give you directions. But it is absolutely terrible for foreigners and the English accessibility of the data is almost non-existent. South Korea clearly doesn’t care about Tourists or business travelers to be able to get around or see things.