I had this post sitting in my drafts for so long so I decided I should just write it up and finish it.

Hiking is a favourite activity in South Korea and especially amongst the oldies. In Korean, they have the word ‘Ajumma’ and ‘Ajusshi’ for middle aged woman and man respectively, which to me, sounds nicer than oldies or elderly. Anyway.

Don’t let hiking in South Korea intimidate you because you just need to follow the ajummas and ajusshi’s. That’s how popular hiking is. On weekends, there are hiking groups and even during the week, there’ll be others hiking too. Inwangsan is located north west of Seoul and is one part of the Seoul wall that you can hike. You can get off at the metro stop: Gyeongbokgung and take exit 1 and follow the main road until you start seeing signs for the Inwangsan Hike (It will be around Sajikdan).

Walking along the wall means that there will be many steps. If you want a hike that isn’t so step heavy, there is a winding path that goes around this side of Inwangsan too.

When you get to what you think is the top, you are rewarded with lots of wind and a beautiful view like this. Picnic-ing is another favourite past time here so you can pack a rug and food and find yourself some flat surface to have a picnic. There were some picnic go-ers already at this first peak.

However, when you keep going, you will reach the proper peak with more space to take a break and sit and admire the view. From here, you can decide to go back the way your came or continue on to finish the route which is what I did.

If you continue on, the end of the trail will be at the area around the Hill of Yun Dong-Ju the poet. When you reach the end, you can cross the road and start the next part of the wall starting at Changuimun Gate which is the Baekgaksan hike which I previously wrote about here. When I did the Baegaksan hike, I ended at Changuimun Gate to avoid all the stairs.

Inwangsan took me about 2 hours to complete and I also stopped to eat along the way. There was no toilet along this hike until the end so keep that in mind!

Whichever way you start, it’s a very rewarding and lovely hike. If you want to get away from the bustle of Seoul, I would recommend hiking the Seoul wall.