Seoul Autumn Hiking: The 3-Week Window You Can't Miss
Three Weeks. That's All You Get. Every autumn I watch the same thing happen. Foreign visitors arrive in Seoul in late October, confident they've timed their trip perfectly, and find bare branches where they expected crimson maples. They missed the window by ten days. Or they arrive in early October, equally confident, and find green leaves that haven't even started to turn. Seoul's autumn foliage season is genuinely narrow — roughly three weeks from first colour to leaf-fall — and it moves fast, unpredictably, and differently depending on which mountain you're standing on. I've been driving clients to trailheads in and around Seoul since the agency started, and the single most common question I get in September is: 'When exactly should I come?' This post is my honest answer, based on watching the foliage shift year after year across Bukhansan, Dobongsan, Achasan, Gwanaksan, and the mountains just beyond the city limits. Why Peak Dates Shift Year to...