The last weekend of free palace entry: the Jongmyo tour Lulu whispered into English, and the Changdeokgung Huwon Maya saved for later

On the morning of Saturday 14 November 2026, by the ticket gates at Jongno 3-ga Station, Lulu held her phone out to Maya with her memo app open. Of the three lines written there, “Jongmyo, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung night”, the last had a thick line struck through it, and underneath, freshly added, was “Deoksugung night”. When Maya put her finger on the crossed-out line and laughed, Lulu gave a single shrug. “Don’t look at the crossed-out bit. You’re the one who found it last night.”

The two of them were friends before Maya ever came to Seoul. Lulu, twenty, born and raised in Seoul, is the one who plans the running order of the videos she makes for her friends. She always picks places that will not fit on one screen, the kind you have to walk through to show. Maya, twenty-one, from Singapore, is someone who steps back and shoots wide wherever she goes, and although she had been to the front courtyard of Geunjeongjeon and to the Huwon, today was her first time at Jongmyo. It was the weekend the cold had both of them digging out their thick coats.

Today they would cover three places — Jongmyo, Changdeokgung and Deoksugung — with Deoksugung last, after dark. This piece follows their day to show how long free palace entry lasts, what the free period leaves out, and which order works for seeing them this weekend. Jongmyo’s Saturday tours, why the Changdeokgung Huwon is separate, and how the night moved from Changgyeonggung to Deoksugung all fit inside that one day. The prices that come back from the 16th, and the closing-day rules that still matter once the free period is over, are gathered towards the end.

The Cue — At a glance

Free entry to the palaces, Jongmyo and the Joseon royal tombs runs until Sunday 15 November 2026. The special Huwon tour at Changdeokgung is not included, and Changgyeonggung’s general night viewing is off this week. No palace is closed this weekend, so see Jongmyo in the morning and Changdeokgung in the daytime, and keep the evening for Deoksugung, which stays open until 9 p.m.

How long does free palace entry last? Until Sunday 15 November 2026, for the four grand palaces, Jongmyo and the royal tombs

Free palace entry lasts until Sunday 15 November 2026. Its name is “Korea Grand Festival period free admission”, and for eighteen days from Thursday 29 October the four grand palaces — Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung — open free of charge along with Jongmyo and the Joseon royal tombs. As long as you avoid the closing days, you pay no admission whenever you go. There are, however, a few things the free period leaves out, and on closing days the gates do not open at all.

Open in Kakao Map — Jongno 3-ga Station

As of 13 November 2026.

It was Maya who spotted the free period first. On Thursday night, while putting next week’s plans into her calendar, she saw the notice about free palace entry and messaged Lulu. “This weekend’s the last one, until the 15th.” Lulu’s reply came back in under a minute. “Saturday then. I’ll pick the places.” All three places Lulu picked were ones that would not fit in a single shot, and Maya looked at the list and thought it was going to be another day of a lot of walking.

But their plan snagged on the bottom two rows of that table at first, once each. Maya had heard “free” and put the Huwon on the list as well, while Lulu thought that, with Donggwol Dongnak on that week, they could simply spend the evening at Changgyeonggung. The bigger the word “free” looks, the easier it is to miss the small print underneath. They only read those two rows properly a day later, on Friday night.

What free entry leaves out: the Changdeokgung Huwon, closing days and separate paid events

There are three main things free entry leaves out. The first is the special Huwon tour at Changdeokgung: even during the free period, you pay the 5,000-won Huwon fee and go in at a set time. The second is closing days, when the gates stay shut whether entry is free or not. The third is the paid events held separately over the same period. Donggwol Dongnak, which links the nights of Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung, runs from 10 to 15 November at 40,000 won per person with tickets decided by lottery, so it works quite apart from free entry.

That makes the daytime the best part of the free period. In the daytime, the palaces, Jongmyo and the royal tombs are all free as long as you avoid the closing days, but this week the evenings are quite a different story. If you are hoping to get into a palace after dark because entry is free, start by working out which ones are open and until when. That story comes later, with Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung and the two friends’ Friday night.

On Thursday night, when Lulu sent over the three lines from her memo app, Maya slipped one more line in between. It said “Changdeokgung Huwon”. Maya had stood by Buyongji Pond once before, and a few days earlier she had seen someone’s late-autumn photos of the Huwon and wanted to go back once more before all the leaves fell. With entry free, she thought, there would be no ticket to worry about this time. She found out the next night that she was wrong.

Is any palace closed this weekend? On Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November, they are all open

No palace is closed this weekend. Gyeongbokgung and Jongmyo close on Tuesdays, and Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung close on Mondays, so on Saturday and Sunday all five are open. Most open at 9 a.m., but the last entry time differs from place to place, so if you are doing several in a day, put the ones with the earliest last entry first. Gyeongbokgung’s last entry is 30 minutes earlier than Jongmyo’s and Changdeokgung’s main palace area, so on a day that includes Gyeongbokgung it is safest to put it first.

Only Deoksugung lets you in until 8 p.m., so if you put the daytime places first and Deoksugung last, the day runs on naturally. If you would rather swap a palace for a royal tomb, check those hours too. Seoul’s Joseon royal tombs such as Heolleung, Illeung and Uireung are open from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. in November with last entry at 4.30 p.m., while Seolleung and Jeongneung open at 6.30 a.m.

Checking the closing days was Maya’s job as well. She held Lulu’s order up against the table one place at a time, and only once she saw that nothing was closed on Saturday did she send a thumbs-up. When it arrived, Lulu wrote a time next to each of the three lines in her memo app. Jongmyo in the morning when the tours start, Changdeokgung around lunchtime, and then the night. At that point, the night line still said Changgyeonggung.

Lulu had put Jongmyo first because of the tours. The Saturday Korean tour starts at 10 a.m., so going in at 9, walking the courtyard first and then joining the first tour was the neatest order. Changdeokgung’s main palace area takes last entry at 4.30 p.m., so it could easily go after lunch, and with entry to Deoksugung until 8 p.m. they could have dinner first. Maya looked at the order and laughed that Lulu had planned the day the way she plans the running order of a video.

Jongmyo is free with no booking, and switches to general admission this period

Jongmyo is free with no booking during the free period. On some days Jongmyo normally runs timed visits, where you enter at a set time behind a guide, but for this period that has switched to general admission. You can wander slowly on your own, and if you want a tour, just turn up for it at the tour time. If you are not joining a tour, you can go in as soon as the gates open at 9 a.m. and walk the quiet courtyard first. It is a five-minute walk from Exit 11 or Exit 8 of Jongno 3-ga Station.

The two of them walked into Jongmyo just after 9. Walking in without paying felt a little odd, and Maya glanced back once at the entrance, and since it was her first time at Jongmyo, she slowed down straight away, looking for the right place to take out her phone. “We’re allowed to just walk in like this, right?” Lulu nodded, held her phone low and started filming from the stone path at her feet. Lulu’s idea is that somewhere new has to be filmed from the ground up, so her friends can follow the path.

Maya tried, as always, to step back a few paces and shoot wide, but Jongmyo is not a place that fits after a few steps back. The long roof ran from one edge of the screen to the other and kept going, so Maya spent a good while shifting about with her phone turned sideways. In the end she shot the roof in three sections. It was the same trick she had used last week on the night path on Namsan, putting three photos side by side, and Lulu saw it and laughed. “See? It doesn’t fit in one shot.”

Jongmyo’s Saturday tours are in Korean only — tours in other languages are on Sunday

Jongmyo’s Saturday tours are in Korean only, with none in other languages. The Saturday Korean tours run five times, at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. If you want a tour in English, Japanese or Chinese, pick Sunday this period. On the last day, Sunday 15 November, tours run in all four languages. So that you do not spend Saturday waiting for a tour in another language, check the day of the week before you set off.

For visitors from abroad, the English tour runs twice, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., so if you miss the morning one, move to the afternoon. If you have come on a Saturday, you can simply walk round without a tour, or, like Maya, join the Korean tour with a friend who speaks Korean. The Bukshinmun gate opens at weekends, on public holidays and on Culture Day Wednesdays.

The two of them looked at this table inside Jongmyo. Waiting for the 10 a.m. tour, Maya searched for the English tour time, saw “None” in the Saturday row and looked at Lulu. Lulu thought for a moment, then took a step towards the guide. “I’ll translate for you. But I’m keeping it short.” So as not to get in the guide’s way, Lulu stood side by side with Maya at the very back of the group. And that is how Lulu became Jongmyo’s English guide for the day.

Whispered interpreting turned out to be harder than it looked. While the guide said one sentence, Lulu got through half of it, and by then the next sentence had already gone by. For the first few minutes Lulu kept up gamely, but at one word the English would not come, and she stopped and just gestured with her hands. When Maya’s shoulders started shaking as she tried not to laugh, Lulu ended up laughing silently too. Later, Maya teased her that the gesture had been the easiest explanation to follow all day.

Even so, Lulu translated all the way to the end. When the tour finished, Maya jotted down the bits of Lulu’s translation she could remember, and only then did Lulu realise she had not pressed record the whole time she was interpreting. Her hands had both been busy with it. “Next Sunday let’s come for the English tour. Then I can film.” Maya pointed out that this Sunday was the last day.

While they followed the tour, Maya kept her phone in her pocket. Holding a screen up among people listening to a guide felt as though it would block the view of whoever stood in front. Instead, once the tour was over and the courtyard had emptied a little, she went back to the spots she had heard about and took the photos one by one. Because she kept listening time and shooting time apart, hardly anyone else ended up in Maya’s photos.

Changdeokgung is free, the Huwon is separate: a 5,000-won Huwon fee and a set entry time with a guide

Changdeokgung’s main palace area is free, but the Huwon needs a separate ticket even during the free period. The adult Huwon fee for the special tour is 5,000 won, and you go in with a guide at a set time, with a ticket booked online or bought on site from 9 a.m. on the day. In November it is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 3.30 p.m. Changdeokgung is a five-minute walk from Exit 3 of Anguk Station, and the main palace area takes last entry at 4.30 p.m. The easy way to remember Changdeokgung during the free period: you just walk into the main palace area, and you only enter the Huwon at the time on your ticket.

Maya found this out on Friday night. She opened the booking page to look at Huwon tickets in advance, and at the very bottom of the free-period notice was a line saying the special Huwon tour was excluded. “The Huwon isn’t free. You have to buy a ticket for it too.” Lulu answered Maya’s message with a single crying face. A plan that had taken in the Huwon on the strength of one word, “free”, had a line to rethink overnight.

Huwon tickets are split half and half between online and on-site sales. Each tour takes 100 people, 50 booked online and 50 sold on site from 9 a.m. on the day. Online booking opens at 10 a.m. six days before the visit date, not counting the day itself, and stays open until the day before. English tours run at 10.30 a.m., 11.30 a.m., 2.30 p.m. and 3.30 p.m., Japanese at 1.30 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, Chinese at 12.30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and Korean on the hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. If you are going for an on-site ticket, put Changdeokgung at the very start of your day.

Reading that line, Maya chose Jongmyo’s first tour over an on-site Huwon ticket. To buy one, she would have had to be at the Changdeokgung ticket office at 9 a.m. on Saturday, which was the time Lulu had set aside for walking Jongmyo’s empty courtyard. Lulu briefly suggested switching things round and trying the Changdeokgung ticket office first thing, but Maya shook her head. Her idea was to keep today for seeing everywhere they could see for free, and to set aside another day for the Huwon, paid for and properly booked. Koreans cannot sign up for a foreign-language tour on their own, but up to two can go in with a foreign visitor, so they agreed that next time Lulu would tag along on Maya’s English tour.

At Changdeokgung, the two of them wandered slowly between the halls. Maya stepped back to the very edge of the courtyard, trying to get the roofs and the walls into one frame, and this time Lulu pressed record first and only then started walking. Under the Jongmyo line in Lulu’s memo app, a new line appeared for a day after the free period: “Huwon, 6 days before, 10 a.m.” Maya looked at the wall on the Huwon side for a long while, and murmured to herself that once the leaves had all gone, the Huwon in snow might be nice too.

Changgyeonggung’s general night viewing is off this week, 10–15 November

From Tuesday 10 to Sunday 15 November, Changgyeonggung’s general night viewing is off. The general night viewing that normally runs from 5.30 p.m. to 9 p.m. does not open in this period, and daytime viewing simply ends at 5.30 p.m. That is because Donggwol Dongnak, with its own tickets, runs on the nights of Changgyeonggung and Changdeokgung over the same period. Without a Donggwol Dongnak ticket, this week you can only get into Changgyeonggung in the daytime. If you really want to see Changgyeonggung at night, it is easier to leave it until after Donggwol Dongnak is over.

The “Changgyeonggung night” line in Lulu’s memo app was crossed out on Friday night too. While they were talking about the Huwon, Maya opened Changgyeonggung’s notices as well and found the suspension of general night viewing set for this week’s dates. “Lulu, the Changgyeonggung night’s off this week too.” Lulu went quiet for a while, then sent just one line. “That’s two defeats in one day.” Instead of a smiley, Maya sent her Deoksugung’s opening hours.

Gyeongbokgung’s night programme, Byeolbit Yahaeng, had already ended on 24 October, and in November Gyeongbokgung closes at 5 p.m. If you want to spend this weekend evening in a palace without a Donggwol Dongnak ticket, Deoksugung, open until 9 p.m., is the easy choice. Lulu wrote “Deoksugung night” under the crossed-out line there and then, and that was the line Maya had put her finger on at the ticket gates that morning. Even as they left Changdeokgung at dusk on Saturday, Lulu glanced back once towards Changgyeonggung, then grinned and pointed the other way.

This weekend’s night is Deoksugung: free entry until 8 p.m., open until 9 p.m.

This weekend, Deoksugung lets you in free until 8 p.m., and you can stay until 9 p.m. It opens at 9 a.m. and stays open until 9 p.m., so even after seeing the other palaces in the daytime and having dinner, there is time to spare. It is a two-minute walk from Exit 2 of City Hall Station, so it is easy to find too. There are a few things that are different this week only, though, and it helps to know them in advance.

Until 19 November, Deoksugung has Pyeongseongmun gate closed, and building work on the southern outer wall from Daehanmun to Ungyo-teo. On the last day, Sunday 15 November, the Chinese tour at Deoksugung has been cancelled. If you were planning on a Chinese tour that Sunday, you are better off switching to Jongmyo’s 11 a.m. Chinese tour. Plan the day as a tour at Jongmyo in the morning and a walk round Deoksugung at night, and you will not miss either.

The two of them walked into Deoksugung after the sun had gone down. As the lights under the eaves came on one by one, Maya stepped back out of habit, then stopped, and this time took three photos without moving. She shot the eave tip, a column and the stone path one at a time, then put the three side by side and showed them to Lulu. Lulu took the three and made them the last scene of her video. Finding that a picture could work without stepping back was Maya’s small discovery of the day.

If you go on the last day, Sunday 15 November, the order can stay the same as theirs, but the tours change. Jongmyo has English tours at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sundays, so if you start the day with the 10 a.m. English tour, you will not need a friend to interpret. Changdeokgung’s main palace area takes last entry at 4.30 p.m., and Changgyeonggung’s general night viewing stays off until that day. Keep the evening for Deoksugung, as they did, and as long as you are in before last entry at 8 p.m., you can spend the last evening of the free period in a palace.

What does it cost from 16 November? Prices that come back, and closing-day rules for after the event

From Monday 16 November, the usual prices come back. Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung are the dearest at 3,000 won, and Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung and Jongmyo are 1,000 won. The prices in the table below are for one adult buying an individual ticket on a paid day, and the Joseon royal tombs vary by tomb. If you are coming to Seoul after the free period, use this table to work out a day’s admission in advance. And if there is somewhere you did not get to during the free period, starting again with the 1,000-won places is one way to do it.

On paid days, the Huwon adds one more sum. To see the Huwon you also have to buy a ticket for Changdeokgung’s main palace area, so for an adult it comes to the 5,000-won Huwon fee plus 3,000 won for the palace. When Lulu wrote 8,000 won next to the Huwon line in her memo app, Maya nodded and said that for that much they should go and see it properly, leaves or snow. For two friends who had put off the Huwon during the free period, that number became the price of their next plan.

If you are aiming for the first day after the free period, check the day of the week as well. 16 November is a Monday, so Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung are closed, and the places open that day are Gyeongbokgung and Jongmyo. On Mondays Jongmyo is back to its usual timed visits, so on the 16th pair Gyeongbokgung with a timed Jongmyo visit. The next day, Tuesday 17 November, it is the other way round and Gyeongbokgung and Jongmyo are closed, so split that day between Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung and you will not hit a single closing day over the two days. If a Monday or Tuesday is a public holiday, the palace opens that day and closes on the next day that is not a holiday, so over a long holiday the closing day can move back by more than one day.

There are three things worth remembering after the free period. The closing day is Tuesday for some palaces and Monday for others, online booking for the Huwon opens at 10 a.m. six days ahead, and Deoksugung stays open until 9 p.m., so you can get in after dark. Know those three and look at the day of the week before the date, and even when the dates change you can plan the day again without it getting tangled. Lulu changed the top line of her memo app to “Mon Changdeok · Changgyeong · Deoksu, Tue Gyeongbok · Jongmyo”.

The video order Lulu put together again: the last weekend of free palace entry, in short

On the walk from Deoksugung to City Hall Station, Lulu put the day’s footage back together from the start. The first scene was the stone path at her feet at Jongmyo, and in place of the interpreting she had forgotten to film, she put in the long roof Maya had shot in three sections. Second came Changdeokgung’s wide courtyard, and last, the three photos under Deoksugung’s eaves. For the caption at the end of the video she settled on one line: “Free until the 15th, the Huwon is separate.”

Maya asked what they should do about Sunday. It was the last day, one more chance to see things for free. Lulu thought for a moment about the Sunday morning English tour at Jongmyo, but shook her head, since they had already been there today. They decided to keep Sunday as a rest day and count everything they had wanted to see in the free period as seen. After all, there was already one reason to come back, free or not, sitting in her memo app.

Common Mistakes

• 01

  Assuming the Huwon is free during the free period

  Maya heard “free” and slipped the Huwon onto the list, then found out only on Friday night that it needs a separate ticket. She chose to spend 9 a.m., when on-site Huwon tickets go on sale, at Jongmyo, and put the Huwon off for another day.

• 02

  Waiting for an English tour at Jongmyo on a Saturday

  Saturday tours are in Korean only. Lulu whispered a translation and did not press record the whole time she was interpreting.

• 03

  Planning a Changgyeonggung night this week

  Changgyeonggung’s general night viewing is off from 10 to 15 November. Lulu’s “Changgyeonggung night” line was crossed out on Friday night and became “Deoksugung night”.

• 04

  Heading to Changdeokgung on Monday 16 November

  The first day after the free period is a Monday, when Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung are closed. That day, go to Gyeongbokgung, or to Jongmyo at a timed visit.

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