Gangwondo’s Hwaamdonggul Cave

Located in Gangwon province, Hwaamdonggul Cave takes you back to the 1920’s for a look at a functioning goldmine in Korea.

The cave, which was functioning from 1922 to 1945, has become a tourist attraction with an educational focus on gold and nature.

The 5th largest goldmine in the country, which is located in Jeongseon, was found to have a stalactite area in an open space of 2,800㎡ and the length of the path open to visitors is 1,803 meters.

Be prepared to walk — the cave is long, and there are a lot of stairs mostly going down in deep, but lit areas of the cave.

It takes about two hours to traverse through the five zones, and wear comfortable shoes and clothing. We can’t emphasize enough the amount of stairs you will take and also if claustrophobia is an issue for you, you may want to give it a pass.

It’s a very interesting cave and the history and nature of it are quite entertaining, though weirdly, zone 3 named story land completely breaks off from the interesting history of the cave into some bizarro goblin presentation which looks like it may have been intended to teach children about gold but more likely scares them then anything.

Admission to the park is 5,000 won for adults, 3,500 for students and 2,000 for children.

The cave is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.