A booking window opens tomorrow at 2pm. It is for September nights at five campgrounds that Seoul city built inside closed-down rural schools. Until tonight only Seoul residents could book; from Thursday 20 August anyone in the country can. A family of four pays ₩25,300 for one night, and the tent, fire bowl and picnic table come free.
Pocheon and Seocheon open at 2pm. Jecheon, Hampyeong and Sangju open at 3pm. The hour gap is there to spread the server load.
The campgrounds used to be primary schools
Rural Korea has been losing children for decades, and the schools closed with them. Seoul city took some of those empty campuses and turned them into family campgrounds. The city runs them and pays for them, which is why they cost so little.
Pocheon Jayeon Maeul was Sajeong branch school. It opened as a campground in July 2014. Jecheon Haneultteure was Songhan branch school and took its first campers in September 2015.
The other three follow the same pattern. Hampyeong Nabi Maeul was Seongnam Elementary, Seocheon Geumbit Noeul was Jangseon Elementary, Sangju Gamkkot Maeul was Yongpo branch school. The old classrooms now hold a screening room, a small library and a baduk room.
Only Pocheon sits in the capital region, in Gyeonggi Province, near the Hantan River basalt gorge. The rest are scattered across North Chungcheong, South Chungcheong, South Jeolla and North Gyeongsang. A sixth site in Bonghwa exists but is missing from this month’s notice, with no reason given.
You can turn up owning nothing
The rate is ₩23,000 plus ₩2,300 VAT. That is ₩25,300 for four people, one night. Card only, no cash.
A tent, mattress, fire bowl and picnic table are included. For a newcomer to camping in Korea this matters more than the price. You can find out whether you like sleeping outdoors before spending anything on gear.
A 30% discount brings it to ₩17,710. It covers single-parent households, families with three or more children, veterans, independence patriots, basic livelihood recipients and people with disabilities.
Check-in is 1pm and check-out is 11am the next morning. There is no phone booking and no same-day booking.
September has gaps. Every Tuesday and Wednesday the sites close for maintenance, and they shut again from 24 to 26 September for the Chuseok holiday. Seocheon runs Friday to Sunday only.
Read the refund rules before you book. Cancel 14 days out for a full refund, 7 days out for 75%, one day out for 50%. Same-day cancellation is not possible at all. Rain does not count either, since the campgrounds stay open in wet weather.
The national park lottery already closed
If you were counting on a national park site this autumn, you missed the window. The Korea National Park Service ran its fifth lottery of the year for stays between 1 September and 31 October. Applications ran from 1 to 5 August, the draw was at 1pm on 5 August, and results landed at 4pm.
Leftovers are still available. Unclaimed slots, cancellations and unpaid winners went back on sale first-come-first-served from 10am on 7 August. That channel is still running.
The lottery now runs year-round, so refreshing at opening time no longer helps. You may enter four applications a month, each for up to two nights.
One trap worth knowing. Korean national park peak season is not only summer. It runs again from 1 October to 15 November, so autumn foliage weekends carry peak pricing.
One campground already holds the whole ladder
There is a running idea in this section of the blog. A second place to rest comes in sizes, and you do not have to jump to the expensive one. The sizes sit side by side inside a single campground.
Take Seorakdong campground in Seoraksan National Park, on the east coast near Sokcho. The pitches are sorted by type and priced accordingly.
A car-accessible tent pitch is ₩20,000 midweek and ₩30,000 on weekends and in peak season. Power is included and there are 140 of them. Pads reserved for campervans and towed caravans cost ₩30,000 and ₩35,000.
You do not need a vehicle to sleep in a caravan. A four-berth caravan runs ₩75,000 midweek and ₩100,000 at peak. Adding a deck makes it a combined site at ₩95,000 and ₩130,000.
The caravan comes with a fridge, microwave, rice cooker and a two-zone hob. There is a four-person dish set, an outdoor table, an awning and a fire pit. Bedding, towels and soap are not provided. You get one mattress and one cover.
Two nights in that caravan is a cheap experiment. It tells you what the next rung up actually feels like before you buy anything.
The annoying parts, written down in advance
Seorakdong showers are coin-operated. ₩1,000 buys six minutes and another ₩500 adds three. There is no wifi and no shared fridge. Power is capped at 1,100W per pitch.
One extra car per pitch is allowed, paid on arrival at ₩4,000 off-peak or ₩5,000 in peak season. Extra people cost ₩10,000 each, up to two.
Prices went up this year. National park facility fees rose for stays from 1 January 2026 after being frozen for between seven and thirteen years. The stated reason was bringing them into line with comparable public facilities.
Some discounts were added at the same time. Families with two or more children under 19, and residents of the local area, now get 10% off. It is processed after the fact once staff check your documents on site.
The Seoul campgrounds have a fairness problem too. Seoul residents get a ten-day head start and everyone else takes what is left. The city pays for the sites, so the logic holds, but the people who actually live next to them queue last.
Climb this ladder and you end up talking about tax
Once ₩20,000 a night becomes a habit, the next rung appears. A mid-size caravan starts around ₩40 million, plus storage fees. A 33m² rural stay unit on farmland runs ₩40–70 million for the unit itself.
None of that counts as a house. For a household that already owns one home, that distinction is the whole game. Buy an actual house in the countryside and you become a two-home household overnight.
That last rung has its own piece, published today. Korea’s second-home tax relief widens in 2027, and without it your first home’s property tax doubles.
The order matters. Sleep in the ₩25,300 tent a few times first. If it still sounds good after that, look up.
For now it is tomorrow at 2pm
Book through the Seoul public reservation system or NOL Interpark. Pocheon and Seocheon at 2pm, the other three at 3pm.
If September sells out, October’s notice is the next chance. Seoul posts the following month’s notice in the first week of each month. I will write again when the October one lands.
Sources
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, September booking notice for the closed-school campgrounds, 7 August 2026
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Pocheon Jayeon Maeul campground page (rates, refunds, hours)
- Korea National Park Service, 2026 lottery round five
- Korea National Park Service, Seorakdong campground guide (rates, pitch types, facilities)
- Korea National Park Service, notice on facility fee increases and expanded discounts, 28 November 2025
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, guide to Seoul-run campgrounds (locations of all six closed-school sites)
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