The outdoor lifestyle industry is insanely popular in Korea, second only to the US (or so I read). I suppose it makes sense – Koreans do love gearing up in expensive technical clothing for any/all outdoor activity to include leisurely strolls along the river and weekend trips to the department store. Koreans also enjoy grilling and eating outside or day camping in sweet tents in parks or on beaches. Basic tent camping (as in a tent that sleeps less than four) and backpacking/minimalist camping however is not as widespread.

Instead, Koreans have glamping.

The moment the weather changed from stifling hot to crisp and cool, it triggered our need to be outdoors. We brought most of our camping gear to Korea but on this particular weekend, having waited until the last minute and feeling too lazy to pack a car with gear or plan any meals, we opted to go glamping.

During some prior trip research I discovered quite a few glamping sites throughout Korea, many of which were located in or around Gyeongju, about an hour or so drive from us. I was especially sold on the photos I saw of Tentaus. Glowing teepees surrounding a lit pool somewhere out in nature? Count us in!

After touring some historic sites in Gyeongju we drive about 20-30 minutes outside of town to what looked like a former rural elementary school built on a farm. Specifically the building looked like a Russian schoolhouse or perhaps something built during the Cold War.

In other words, it didn’t look quite like the photos we had seen online. At least not from certain angles.

When we booked our room we also added a set meal to our reservation. We weren’t exactly sure what the meal included but we brought our own table grill for cooking it. Turned out the main portion of our meal was a massive slab of pork that had to be slow cooked on one of their charcoal grills — an extra 15,000KRW –for about an hour. At that point we were too hungry to care.

I tend to avoid eating pork (I love pigs) but I couldn’t deny that this was one delicious meal. The pork slab was seasoned and cooked to absolute juicy perfection and was eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves along with grilled mushrooms, veggies, and onions and topped with a variety of spicy sauces.

Washed down with a couple cold metal shot glasses of cloudy makgeolli while bundled up sitting in folding chairs at a folding table in our tented abode.

A couple tents down, our (only) neighbors enjoyed eating and drinking (and talking) well into the night.

After a few rounds of makgeolli and with bellies stuffed from a full day of gorging on Korean food, our bed started to call to us.

So we closed up our tent and read and watched movies until we drifted off to the distant sounds of squealing farm animals and drunken laughter.

We were up bright and early the next morning. While the rest of camp slept Sly and I lounged around listening to the rain. Instant ramen had been provided for breakfast but after eating so much the day/night before we were convinced that we weren’t hungry.

Until I opened a bag of jalepeno kettle chips.

After polishing off a bag of chips for breakfast we packed up what little we had and drove to Namsan Mountain where we spent the day hiking.

DETAILS

Tentaus | COST: 79,000-110,000 KRW for tented sites + 30,000KRW for set meal for 2 people + 15,000KRW for the bbq grill. Other than their naver website, the best way to reserve/purchase is to use one of the Korean Groupon-like sites — TMON or Coupang. We didn’t feel like signing up or having to deal with the hassle of having our credit card rejected so we ended up using a fairly new concierge service called AskAjumma. Basically if you’re an English speaker and want someone to help you book/buy/order anything (and you don’t want to bother your friends) then AskAjumma can do it for you. I had mostly heard of it being used to order food, but we were curious to see if we could book travel plans. Long story short: we did. It was really easy and the service was great (even texting us to inform us of things like traffic)…but…it does come at a cost. We guessed it to be about a 20% fee to use their service which isn’t much when you’re ordering food, especially since tipping is not common in Korea, but when you’re booking a budget getaway it adds up. All in all, between the tent + fees + food + grill cost us in the neighborhood of $125-$130 USD. While not cost prohibitive, in my opinion it’s a bit pricey considering you’re sleeping outside in a tent and when the price of a decent hotel in Gyeongju is about the same, if not less. | DESCRIPTION: There are something like 15 or so tee-pee structures each built on top of their own wooden platform. The majority of these tents are in front of the school house and the remaining 5 or so tents are located around the outside of the pool (as shown in most of the photos of this place). In addition to the tee-pees there is a huge parking lot for car camping/hookups. If you’re thinking of car camping like the way we think of car camping in the states — this is not that. Car camping in Korea is more similar to RV camping — HUGE tents (oftentimes multiple tents for one family) and gravel sites (with hookups) set right up against the other. On the other hand the tent/car/rv campsites are a lot cheaper. As for the “Tetaus” tee-pees — there is a round bed, two beanbags, and a floor heating pad as well as electricity, wifi, bedding and all the kitchen utensils you will probably need. I think these tee pees are meant to accommodate four people but unless you’re cool sleeping on the floor/heated pad I’m not quite sure how that works. We were given pillows and a comforter but we also brought our own 2-person sleeping bag. If you’re here during the colder months I would definitely recommend bringing your own blanket.| FACILITIES: Inside the schoolhouse there is a small convenience store, unisex bathrooms, showers, a kitchen area for washing dishes, a fridge (that wasn’t plugged in), and a microwave. Outside, near the tents, is another building with bathrooms. Everything is clean — much cleaner than if you were to stay at a campground in the states, at least from the bathroom/kitchen aspect. Bring your own drinking water. | GOOD FOR: Families, groups, people that don’t really mind noise or lack of privacy. I believe that you book per site/tent not per person so the more people you have the less the cost. | VERDICT: I don’t think I would have personally enjoyed camping here as much if all the tents and campsites had been filled unless we were with a group of people. There’s not much privacy or space between tents or sites and I can only imagine how loud it would be if the campground was at capacity. The camping experience was more like setting up a tent in someone’s backyard instead of say camping out in the woods somewhere. We anticipated this to some degree. That being said, for one night during the off-season we found Tentaus to be unique and fun. We were glad to have experienced it though given the cost we probably wouldn’t return unless we were with friends or family. | TIP: about 10 min drive away is an outlet mall that seemed to specifically specialize in outdoor clothing/gear. You’ll pass it on your way to the campsite. We were very very tempted to stop.