Gyeonghuigung

The fifth palace, and the one nobody goes to. It was a substantial complex of over a hundred buildings, used as a refuge when the main palaces were unusable; the colonial government demolished essentially all of it and put a school on the site. What stands now is a partial reconstruction from the 1990s: the gate, the throne hall, a couple of halls behind it.

That makes it the least impressive palace in Seoul and, for exactly the same reason, the most peaceful. On a weekday you can have a Joseon courtyard entirely to yourself, ten minutes from Gwanghwamun.

What it costs

⭐ Free. No ticket, no window, walk in.

It is not on the integrated palace ticket for the obvious reason.

When to go

Closed Monday, like the others in its group.

Any time. There is no queue to beat and no crowd to avoid, which is not a sentence that applies anywhere else on this list.

Getting there

Seodaemun station on line 5, exit 4, or walk fifteen minutes west from Gwanghwamun Square. The Seoul Museum of History is on the same site and is also free.

If you only have an hour

In through Heunghwamun, up the stone stair, and stand in the empty court in front of Sungjeongjeon. Twenty minutes is enough to see it and the point is not the seeing.

Pair it with the Seoul Museum of History next door, which covers how the city got from a walled Joseon capital to what is outside the window, and is one of the more genuinely useful free museums in the city.

What people get wrong

Expecting a fifth Gyeongbokgung. Come for the emptiness, not the architecture.