Korea Hiking on Public Holidays: Dates to Avoid & Quiet Alternatives
A Warning, Not a Welcome Every year I watch the same thing happen. A foreign visitor lands in Seoul, checks the calendar, sees a long weekend coming up, and thinks: perfect timing for a hike. They book Seoraksan or Bukhansan. They are excited. Then they arrive at the trailhead at 9 a.m. and find a queue of two thousand people stretching back to the car park. I am not exaggerating. On major Korean public holidays, the most famous mountain trailheads resemble subway platforms at rush hour — except everyone is wearing gaiters and carrying hiking poles. If you are planning to hike in Korea and you have not thought about public holidays, this post is for you. Why Korean Public Holidays Hit Trails So Hard Hiking is the single most popular outdoor leisure activity in Korea. Around 40 percent of the adult population hikes regularly, and the country has an extraordinary concentration of national parks within a few hours of Seoul. When a holiday falls on a Monday or Friday, creating a th...