- Address
- Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul (along the palace's south wall)
- Getting there
- City Hall Station (Lines 1/2), Exit 2 — the walkway starts at the palace gate.
- Hours
- The street is always open. Deoksugung Palace 09:00–21:00, closed Mondays. The palace-interior section of the walkway closes earlier — around 17:30, extended to about 20:30 during the summer night opening.
- Admission
- Street free. Palace ₩1,000 for ages 25–64, free under 25 and over 65 — foreign visitors pay the same ₩1,000.
Deoksugung Stonewall Walkway
Free to visitThe full 1.1 km is walkable — but one stretch runs inside the palace grounds and has its own closing time.
The tree-lined stone-wall road beside Deoksugung Palace — one of the most-filmed streets in Seoul, famous for emotional walking scenes in Goblin and many others.
What Korean visitors report
🔎 Last checked · August 2026Korean-language visitor reports carry details that English guides do not — what is still standing, what closed, and what the walk from the car park is actually like. We read them and summarise the facts here.
- The walk is continuous now — it was not for sixty years
- The British Embassy occupied a 70-metre stretch of the wall, and for six decades anyone walking the loop hit a dead end and had to double back. Seoul recovered the section and opened the full 1.1 km. If you are following an older guide that tells you to turn around at the embassy, that instruction is obsolete.
- Part of the route goes inside the palace, free
- To connect that blocked 70 metres, the Cultural Heritage Administration built a walkway through the palace grounds behind Jungmyeongjeon in December 2018. It is free — you do not buy a palace ticket to use it — and the entrance is the glass-railed opening off the stonewall path. Around 1,500 people a day use it.
- But it shuts before the street does
- This is the detail that catches people out. The interior walkway closes around 17:30 for most of the year. In summer it gets a night extension to roughly 20:30 — the announcement has historically run from late May to the end of October. Outside those hours the stonewall path is open but that linking stretch is not, so an evening walk means the old there-and-back.
- The Goblin spot is the curve near the Salvation Army building
- The stretch Korean visitors identify with the Grim Reaper and Goblin meeting is the rounded curve on the downhill approach from Gwanghwamun, by the Salvation Army Hall. Behind the wall on that section you can see Donedeokjeon, restored and opened recently — it was not there when the drama was shot.
- The guard ceremony is now twice a day, not three times
- The royal guard changing ceremony at Daehanmun currently runs at 11:00 and 14:00. Many guides — this page included until August 2026 — still list a third session at 15:30. It is free, takes about 20 minutes, does not run on Mondays, and is an outdoor event that gets cancelled for rain, snow, extreme heat or bad air, so check on the day.
- Autumn is the two-week window
- The ginkgo canopy turns gold in late October to early November. That is when the street looks like its drama appearances; the rest of the year it is a pleasant walk rather than the image.
Based on: Korean press coverage of the walkway's completion, Cultural Heritage Administration announcements about the interior path, and the guard ceremony's current published schedule
Sources checked:
- Korean press coverage — full 1.1 km opening after the embassy section was returnedOfficial
- Cultural Heritage Administration / Deoksugung Management Office announcements on the interior walkway and its summer night openingOfficial
- Naver Place listing — palace hours and admission tiersRegistry
Dramas filmed at Deoksugung Stonewall Walkway
Goblin
The stone-wall road frames several of the drama's signature contemplative walks.
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
Young-woo and Jun-ho's episode-10 walk along the palace wall.
Visiting tips
The walkway curves for about 900 meters along the palace wall, canopied by ginkgo trees that turn deep gold in late October–early November — the two weeks when it looks exactly like its drama appearances. A local legend says couples who walk it together break up, which the dramas love to reference; walk it anyway.
Time your visit to catch the royal guard changing ceremony at Deoksugung’s Daehanmun gate — 11:00 and 14:00, not Mondays. It’s free, runs about twenty minutes, and gets cancelled in bad weather.
The walkway is also no longer a there-and-back. The British Embassy held 70 metres of it for sixty years; that section was recovered and the full 1.1 km now connects, partly via a free walkway inside the palace grounds. Take the glass-railed opening off the stonewall path — but note it closes around 17:30 outside the summer night-opening season.
What’s nearby
Jeongdong-gil continues the walk past century-old missionary buildings toward Seoul Museum of Art, itself a drama regular. City Hall Plaza and Gwanghwamun are each 10 minutes on foot, so this slots into any downtown palace day without a detour.