Where do I reserve national park shelters and restricted trails in foliage season?
I am from Thailand, studying in Seoul on a D-2 visa. In October I want to go to Seoraksan or Odaesan with friends, and I have been told that some trails cannot be entered without a reservation and that mountain shelters have to be booked ahead.
Where are those reservations made, can I register for an account with an alien registration card, and how many days in advance do the slots open? I would rather find out now than be turned back at the trailhead.
1 Answer
Both go through one place: the Korea National Park Service reservation system at reservation.knps.or.kr. Mountain shelters, campgrounds and the trail sections that require a booking to enter are all handled there, so you do not need to hunt for separate sites per park.
The reservation requirement applies to specific sections, not to whole mountains, and which sections are covered differs from park to park. Search for the course you actually plan to walk; if it is not on the list, you simply turn up and walk it. Shelters work the same way — some have stopped operating, so check in the reservation system whether the one you have in mind is currently running rather than relying on an older blog post. Opening times for bookings and the cap on numbers vary by facility, and in foliage season some slots are gone within minutes of release, so find the release date in the system's notices and set a reminder.
Whether you can register an account with an alien registration card depends on the identity verification method the system uses at the time, so read the guidance at the sign-up step, and contact the Korea National Park Service customer centre if you get stuck. Some facilities verify that the person arriving is the person who booked, so asking a Korean friend to reserve in their name is not a workaround I would recommend.
Even the sections that need no reservation have things to plan for. Park admission fees were abolished, but parking is charged separately. The Gwongeumseong cable car at Seoraksan has no advance booking at all — same-day on-site tickets only — at a round-trip fare of about KRW 16,000 for adults and KRW 12,000 for children, and it is worth confirming the current fare before you travel. From mid-November, fire-prevention season can close some trails, so check the closure notices on the Korea National Park Service site (knps.or.kr) before you set out.
A two-day route linking Seoraksan and Odaesan, with the time each course takes, is set out in our Gangwon foliage article on this site.