A small, free tool that answers one question: is it a good time to go?
Korea is not crowded everywhere, all the time. It is crowded in certain places, at certain hours, on certain days. Most of that can be known in advance — it simply isn't written down anywhere a visitor can read. Korea Now is that writing-down.
For 159 places across the country it shows what entry costs, when the doors are open, which day of the week the site is closed, and how busy it is likely to be. No account, no app store, no payment.
Every figure is public data or something we went and looked up. Where a number is an estimate rather than a headcount, the page says so on the spot.
Crowd levels, admission prices, opening hours and the order of every list are not for sale. Nobody can pay to be added to a list, to rank higher, or to change what we say about a place.
Korea Now does carry some advertising: a small "Featured" box on the Art, Music, Marathon and K-Beauty Roads, where an exhibition, concert or event may be paid for. Every paid item is labelled Ad (in Korean, 광고), and items we simply recommend are labelled Our pick. The box sits apart from the lists and the map, and it does not change which places we show or their order.
One person, in Seoul. Korea Now is independent — not run by, funded by, or affiliated with the Korea Tourism Organization, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, or any of the other bodies whose open data it uses.
Found a price that has changed, or a place we have wrong? Please write: koreanow.contact@gmail.com. Corrections are the most useful thing anyone sends.