Korea has three major ice fishing festivals, and they are not interchangeable. Here is the short answer.

	Fish	2026 dates	Price	Book online?
Hwacheon	Mountain trout	Jan 10 – Feb 1	₩15,000 (~$11)	Yes
Pyeongchang	Trout	Jan 9 – Feb 9	₩25,000 (~$18) adult / ₩20,000 (~$14) child	Tent fishing only
Hongcheon	Ginseng-fed trout	Jan 9 – 25	₩15,000 (~$11)	No

If you have young children, go to Hongcheon or book a tent at Pyeongchang. Both let children fish without sitting exposed on open ice, which is what usually decides whether the day works.

If you want the famous one, it’s Hwacheon — a million visitors, and the only one you can reliably book from abroad.

Three things to know before you plan around any of them:

• Most tickets can’t be booked online. Details below.
• The season can be cancelled. It depends on ice thickness, not the calendar.
• The blanket matters more than the coat. The cold comes up through the ice.

The rest of this post explains each of those.

Trout or Smelt? They’re Different Trips

All three festivals above are trout. There is a second category almost no English guide mentions.

Smelt (bingeo) are about the size of your finger, eaten deep-fried whole, and caught at smaller, cheaper festivals — Inje, Anseong, Ganghwa.

Children catch smelt far more often than they catch trout. Our child caught one, and the size of the fish had nothing to do with how proud they were.

So: trout festivals for the photo and the meal. Smelt festivals for the odds of your child actually catching something.

The Season Can Be Cancelled

The season runs late December to mid-February, but the dates move every year because they depend on ice thickness.

In 2020, warm weather and rain delayed the Hwacheon opening twice. It finally opened January 27, and the ice measured only about 18cm — too thin. The ice fishing area never opened that year, though the festival itself ran.

If you are flying in for this: book refundable accommodation, keep a backup activity for that day, and don’t make it the reason for the trip.

The Three Festivals

Hwacheon Sancheoneo Festival

CNN named it one of the seven wonders of winter. Over a million visitors. Hwacheon’s river freezes to over 30cm because of its wide temperature swings and slow current.

• Jan 10 – Feb 1, 2026 (23 days)
• ₩15,000 (~$11) for middle school and up, ₩10,000 (~$7) concession, free below elementary school with a guardian
• Includes a ₩5,000 (~$4) local goods voucher — real cost around ₩10,000 (~$7)
• Limit 3 fish per person
• Book via Interpark, or on site

Bare-hand catching is 14 and over only. Worth knowing before you promise it to anyone.

Parking fills by 10am on weekends. Use the temporary lots at Hwacheon County Office or the school grounds and take the free shuttle. On-site tickets often sell out in the morning on weekends.

Pyeongchang Trout Festival

Smaller crowds, and the only one with a phone line for foreign visitors: +82-33-336-4000.

• Jan 9 – Feb 9, 2026 (until 2pm on the last day)
• 09:00–17:00, ticket sales close 16:00
• Ice fishing ₩25,000 (~$18) adult / ₩20,000 (~$14) elementary, includes one trout
• Indoor fishing and bare-hand catching around ₩20,000 (~$14)
• Tent fishing ₩39,000 (~$28) adult / ₩30,000 (~$22) elementary
• Preschoolers free with a guardian

Tent fishing is the reason to come here with children. You fish from inside a two-person tent with a chair, out of the wind off the river. It costs more, and it is the difference between two hours and twenty minutes.

Tent spots aren’t assigned — you take what’s free. Cancellation only up to two days before, by 4pm.

Hongcheon Ice Festival

The trout here are raised on ginseng, around 800g each. That exists nowhere else.

• Jan 9 – 25, 2026 (17 days)
• 09:00–17:30
• ₩15,000 (~$11), reduced from ₩20,000 (~$14)
• ₩5,000 gift certificate refunded, plus another ₩5,000 (~$7 total back) — the real cost is low

The best of the three for young children, because of one thing the others don’t have: an indoor family fishing area where you can see the fish in the water. Waiting blindly over a hole is very different from seeing what you’re aiming at. For younger kids this often decides the day.

Also ice sleds, a traditional village setting, and folk games.

The Booking Problem

This is what catches out visitors from abroad.

• Pyeongchang — online booking covers tent fishing only. Everything else is walk-up.
• Hongcheon — on-site only. Tickets are split into morning and afternoon sessions, so arriving at the wrong hour means waiting.
• Hwacheon — the one you can book online, through Interpark.

You cannot lock these in from home the way you would a theme park. Arrive early. Treat weekend afternoons as unreliable.

What to Bring

Most lists say dress warmly. True, and not enough.

A blanket to sit on. This is the one I wish someone had told us. The cold doesn’t come from the air — it comes up through the ice into whatever you’re sitting on. No amount of outerwear fixes it.

Hand warmers. Any Korean convenience store sells them, stick-on and hold-in-hand. Buy more than you think. Put a stick-on one at the small of your back.

Layers, not one thick coat. Thermal underlayers beat another jacket. Windproof outer matters more than bulk.

Waterproof gloves. Children will touch the fish, the ice, the water. Wet gloves end the day.

Insulated waterproof boots.

One Afternoon on the Ice

Our family of four sat around four holes, waiting to see who the fish would choose first.

A float twitched. Before anyone else reacted, our child’s rod moved. They lifted it with both hands and a smelt the size of a finger came up shimmering through the water.

Surprise, joy, and the look that says I did it myself without needing words.

Between catches we warmed our hands with cocoa and talked about nothing. Those are the parts I remember — not the count. If you’re visiting Korea in winter with children, this is a simple thing that makes a memory that stays.

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2026 dates and prices. USD figures are approximate, at roughly ₩1,390 to the dollar. 2027 dates are usually announced in October — this post will be updated then.