Seoul Wellness Travel Week Opens With Temple Meditation, Hanok Dining and a New City List

Seoul Wellness Travel Week opens Saturday, Oct. 24, and runs 12 days through Sunday, Nov. 4, with programming concentrated in Gangnam District and extending to eight wellness sites citywide. The Seoul Metropolitan Government is organizing the event under the slogan "Seoul, Defines the Next Wellness," built around three themes: rest, food and culture.

The centerpiece venue is Bongeunsa Temple, 531 Bongeunsa-ro, Gangnam-gu, where 15 wellness programs run over the opening weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Offerings include sound-bowl meditation, yoga, tea gatherings and restorative exercise sessions, plus an evening walking meditation through the temple grounds. Most sessions cost 5,000 won, about $3.60, and are bookable in advance. One exception: a meditation session led by Ven. Geumgang, chair of the Jogye Order's Seon Meditation Committee, is free to attend.

A second anchor site is Pilkyungjae, a traditional hanok house in Gangnam, where organizers have built a dining and culture program into the district's wellness theme, according to The Korea Times.

The week also serves as the public launch of the city's new "Wellness 100" list, a roster of 100 sites chosen from 217 open-call nominations by a 14-member evaluation panel, split into rest (52 sites), taste (17) and style, covering beauty, spa, arts and culture (31), according to earlier Korea Times reporting on the list's unveiling. Itineraries drawn from the list, aimed at foreign visitors, are posted on english.visitseoul.net.

The event follows South Korea's Act on the Promotion of the Healing Tourism Industry, which took effect April 9, 2026, establishing the country's first legal framework for wellness tourism around landscapes, hot springs, food and trail experiences, per Health Club Management. Seoul's event sits alongside the Culture Ministry's separate plan to designate 20 national wellness tourism destinations, part of a wider push the city has described, through the Seoul Tourism Organization, as shifting from chasing visitor numbers toward longer stays and deeper spending.

For visitors planning around the dates, Bongeunsa's opening-weekend schedule is the most time-bound element: the 15 sessions and the free Ven. Geumgang meditation are confined to Saturday and Sunday, after which the week's remaining days shift toward the Pilkyungjae dining program and the broader Wellness 100 itineraries across Gangnam and the seven other listed sites.