Hiking culture in Korea

Hiking is the Korean national pastime. Korea is famously mountainous, and its people have a long-standing, intimate connection with mountains.

When the weather is nice, Koreans go hiking. On summer weekend mornings, the Seoul subway cars are crowded with recreational hikers heading out to trails on the outskirts of the city. Here in Gyeongju, famous mountain trails attract locals and tourists alike.

There is also deeply embedded cultural knowledge that exercise is vital to the health of the elderly. Old people are constantly exercising. Whether they are using the adult exercise stations that are in public parks, or taking daily constitutionals, or hiking up mountains, it's not uncommon to see men and women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s engaged in vigorous outdoor activity.

An exercise station along the Gyeongju riverside.

Woman hula hooping (with GIANT hoop) at exercise station near top of Songhwa-san trail.

So it's not uncommon when out hiking to meet elderly people along the trail. Many are in excellent health, and (like Erma's parents) can move as quickly and surely up and down the trails as people half their age. Others are clearly weak and frail, and make themselves move by sheer force of will. I remember once a few months ago walking up a trail at Songhwasan and coming across an elderly woman leaning against a tree, resting. She was methodically pounding her arm and leg muscles with her fist, trying to beat out the aches and pains. "Ay," she moaned, "this is so hard!" But she knew she had to keep going, and later while we were resting and having a snack at a higher point on the mountain, she came into view, shuffling with dogged purpose.

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Korea is a prosperous country. Koreans are also style-conscious, so it is perhaps no surprise that a good deal of their disposable income seems to go toward hiking gear. Even on easy, short, level hikes, many Koreans are dressed in outrageously fancy gear. They are covered head to toe against the sun, with elaborate hats, hiking poles, and fashionable outdoor wear in an array of shiny bright colors. Here are a few surreptitious photos we've managed to take of hikers decked out in typical fashion.

This is by no means an original observation. The NPR reporter stationed in South Korea recently tweeted about it.

ICYMI, Koreans are super hard core about hiking GEAR. They all look like this when they go for even short hikes: pic.twitter.com/9jO6Il9mAu

— Elise Hu (일리스 후) (@elisewho) June 15, 2015

And these hiking outfits aren't just worn for hiking; they have become fashionable in and of themselves, so you see them worn as leisure and travel wear as well. Perhaps one could draw an analogy with yoga pants in the US: specialized exercise gear that crosses over into everyday fashion wear.


Koreans are also meticulous about keeping their clothing (and the inside of their cars) clean. At the bottom of the main Namsan trail there is a small compressed-air station that hikers use to blow all the dirt and dust off their clothes and shoes at the end of hike. If an amenity like this isn't available, Koreans will use compressed air (for filling tires) at a gas station.

This video shows some hikers cleaning up at Namsan. I was goggle-eyed when I first saw this: there is something almost surreal about it, at least from my blinkered American perspective. (As always, it's better to bypass the terrible video quality on Blogger and click through to the Vimeo version.)

To view higher-quality video on Vimeo, click me and enter password "korea".