Hongdae and Myeongdong are difficult to rank with a generic scorecard because they solve different problems. Hongdae can make the airport journey and west-Seoul evenings feel more natural. Myeongdong can make a scattered central-Seoul itinerary easier to interrupt, regroup and restart. Adding up subway lines, restaurants and nightlife usually leaves you with two places that both look "convenient."
If you have already narrowed the choice to these two areas, stop researching four-neighborhood rankings. Instead, play two short scenes from the hotel door. The first begins when your flight lands. The second begins on an afternoon when you are carrying shopping bags and someone wants a break. Whichever scene looks more like your trip should carry more weight. If neither fits, return to the where to stay in Seoul guide, because Hongdae versus Myeongdong may be the wrong comparison.
For arrival night, include a delayed flight, tired travelers and full luggage. For the shopping afternoon, include rain, a group that splits up and someone wanting to rest. If an area only looks convenient when the weather is good and everyone has energy, that is not a strong hotel advantage. Test both neighborhoods against the same imperfect conditions.
Choose Hongdae for arrival night only if the west side keeps paying you back
Imagine clearing immigration at Incheon, collecting your bags and heading into Seoul with everything you brought. If the hotel is on an easy-to-reach side of Hongik University Station, the first evening can feel like one continuous sequence: airport, train, hotel, then dinner. That simplicity matters more for late flights, solo travelers, large luggage or groups with limited energy. The benefit is not that Hongdae is "closest to the airport." It is that the arrival night can require fewer decisions.
But you only get that airport advantage at the beginning and end of the trip. If the next three mornings all pull you toward Gyeongbokgung, Jongno, Dongdaemun or south Seoul, you are trading several cross-city starts for one easier arrival. The real question is whether that exchange is worth it. Do not give the airport connection more weight than the days in between.
Now let the scene run into the evening. If your group likes dinner, cafés, bars or shopping and people may return to the hotel separately, Hongdae can remove the need to give every night a hard stop. That only counts if you will actually use it. If you sleep early or most nights finish elsewhere, the nightlife around the hotel becomes background—and potentially another noise or crowd filter. Hongdae starts to pull ahead when both arrival/departure and west-side evenings appear more than once in the trip.
Choose Myeongdong when being able to return to the hotel changes the day
Now picture a different afternoon. You have spent the morning sightseeing, picked up shopping bags after lunch and someone wants to rest. Myeongdong's value is not that every Seoul attraction is nearby. It is that, on a trip moving through several central directions, returning to the room does not necessarily end the day. You can drop purchases, change shoes, let a child or older traveler rest, then head back out.
If you never return to the hotel during the day, this advantage shrinks. Two energetic travelers who leave after breakfast and come back only at night may get little from a central regrouping point. When each day already has one fixed neighborhood, sleeping near the day's final stop may be more useful than occupying the middle of the map. Myeongdong is not "close to everything"; it is flexible when the itinerary may need to split and recombine.
The evening matters too. Myeongdong can make it easy to end shopping or dinner and return to the room, but it does not create the same late-night neighborhood rhythm as Hongdae. For a group where one person may go back early while someone else keeps shopping, that ability to fold the evening back into the hotel can be more useful than nightlife outside the door.
The deciding factor is whether you use the same advantage a second time
Count the first use, but do not decide yet
If Hongdae's airport convenience matters only on arrival and every later evening finishes elsewhere, its weight should fall. If you only pass through Myeongdong one afternoon without returning to the hotel, its central flexibility should not be counted as a daily benefit. Familiarity with the neighborhood does not count; only actions that really happen do.
When the same advantage appears again, put it next to the date
For Hongdae, you might write: airport arrival, two nights ending on the west side, friends returning separately. For Myeongdong: two afternoons returning to the room, north-south sightseeing days, a traveler needing midday rest. Avoid phrases such as "good transport" or "safe for a first trip" because they do not attach to a specific day.
On a short trip, event density matters even more
A five-day trip can make the first and last airport journeys feel disproportionately important. Build the daily geography first with the 5-day Seoul itinerary, then count where the hotel advantage actually repeats. Do not rearrange attractions after booking just to make the chosen hotel look sensible.
Two sensible-looking plans that miscalculate the real cost
The first treats an easy airport connection as a permanent discount on the whole trip. Seeing a straightforward journey to Hongdae can distract from the exact station exit and the fact that several later days may keep pulling east or south. Evaluate the airport journey separately from the first and last location of every full sightseeing day.
The second treats Myeongdong's central label as proof that the exact hotel location no longer matters. A booking page saying "Myeongdong" does not tell you whether rolling luggage, crossing a major road, using an underground passage or reaching your preferred subway line will be easy. Choosing the neighborhood narrows the search; it does not replace choosing the hotel.
A third temptation is splitting the trip simply because you want to stay in both. For most short Seoul trips, Hongdae and Myeongdong are not far enough apart to make a hotel move necessary. Check-out, luggage storage, waiting for the second room and unpacking again can consume a meaningful part of a day. A split makes more sense only when the first and second halves genuinely live in different parts of the city. Otherwise, stay in one area and give the other a full afternoon and evening.
Draw two lines on the map, then move on to the actual hotel
Draw the first line from Incheon Airport or your arrival point to the hotel, then continue it to where you will spend the first evening. Draw the second line from the afternoon location that appears most often back to the hotel, then out again to the typical evening finish. If Hongdae makes the first line much cleaner and the second also repeats on the west side, Hongdae has the stronger case. If Myeongdong repeatedly shortens that second line without creating an arrival-day problem, Myeongdong has the stronger case.
If it is still a tie, stop adding comparison categories and look at actual rooms. Keep the dates, room needs and cancellation conditions consistent, then compare the nearest station exit, the walk from that exit to the door, luggage space and recent noise feedback. At that point the problem has changed from "which neighborhood?" to "which room can execute the itinerary?"
Write the final reason as one sentence tied to real dates: "We arrive late and finish two evenings in Hongdae, so we are staying in Hongdae," or "We may return to the room on three afternoons and our group will split up, so we are staying in Myeongdong." If the sentence contains no concrete event, the choice is probably still being driven by the neighborhood's reputation rather than your trip.