About Korea Now

What this is

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 55 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.

Where the numbers come from

Live crowd levels

Seoul Metropolitan Government real-time city data121 hotspots, updated every few minutes. Seoul only.

14-day forecast

Korea Tourism Organization congestion forecastModelled from mobile-carrier movement. Nationwide.

Quietest day

Korea Tourism Data Lab visitor countsForeign visitors by district, averaged over 12 weeks.

Places and photos

Korea Tourism Organization TourAPI

Exchange rates

The Export-Import Bank of KoreaOfficial daily rate.

Subway arrivals

Seoul Metro open data

Maps

OpenStreetMap

Prices and hours

Checked by hand, one place at a timeEach page shows the month it was last verified.

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.

What we will never do

If this site ever carries advertising or earns a commission on a booking, it will be labelled, it will sit beside the information rather than inside it, and it will not change which places we show or the order we show them in. That is the whole promise, and it is the reason to trust anything else on the page.

Who makes it

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: hello@korea-now.com. Corrections are the most useful thing anyone sends.