N Seoul Tower Love Locks: Where They Are and How the Ritual Works

The padlocked railings of Namsan are, alongside the tower itself, the free summit ritual the city itself promotes. Couples buy a lock, clip it to a fence, and leave it there as a marker. The practice is so embedded in the mountain now that Seoul's own city government puts the "Locks of Love" on its official list of Namsan attractions, alongside the heart chairs and the photo booths, and the city's newest guided night walk routes walkers past the lock deck by name. This guide sets out what is actually verified about the locks: where they sit, whether they are still going, what the ritual involves, and how the free parts of the summit connect to the one paid thing up there, the observatory ticket.

A word on what this page will not do. A lot of confident detail about the N Seoul Tower love locks circulates online: exact floors, counts, weights, origin stories and prices. Almost none of it comes from a primary source. Everything below is drawn from the tower operator, the city government and the cable car company, and where a fact could not be verified, the page says so rather than guessing.

Where are the N Seoul Tower love locks?

The love locks sit on the open terraces around the base of N Seoul Tower, on the summit of Namsan, not inside the ticketed observation deck. They are reached from the summit plaza, in the open air, without buying anything. Seoul's city government lists the "Locks of Love" among Namsan's attractions, and the terraces, the plaza and the park paths leading to them are all free to enter.

The railings are part of the outdoor circulation around the tower building. Anyone who arrives at the summit, whether by cable car, bus or on foot, walks out onto the plaza level where the tower stands, and the lock terraces are woven into that outdoor space. You do not pass a ticket gate to reach them. The gate, where there is one, guards the observation deck inside the tower, which is a separate thing entirely.

Exactly which level or terrace the locks occupy is not something any official source pins down, and the two companies that publish information about the mountain do not agree in a way that settles it. What is settled is the relationship to the ticket: the city's April feature on Namsan groups the locks with the free things on the mountain and prices only the observatory, and the tower operator's own floor guide places its ticketed spaces inside the building. The locks are outside that boundary.

The city's new night walk is useful confirmation of how central the locks now are to the mountain's identity. Launched in September 2026, the free guided Namsan City Wall night course passes the Zelkova Observatory, the Sunset Observatory and the Wellness Garden, then N Seoul Tower and the love lock deck, and finishes at Palgakjeong, the octagonal pavilion on the summit. A city tourism channel putting the lock deck on an official route, by name, is about as strong a signal as it gets that the locks are a fixture rather than a leftover.

Do they remove the locks at Namsan Tower?

No removal programme has been announced, by the tower operator, by the plaza operator or by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and no official source says the locks are cleared on a cycle. The locks remain active: visitors were still describing buying and attaching locks on site in 2026, and the city's own pages still promote them. Stories claiming the locks were cut down have circulated on social media, but they do not trace to any official source.

This is the question readers ask most, and it deserves a careful answer rather than a reassuring one. The tower operator publishes no statement about removing the love locks, the plaza operator YTN Seoul Tower, or the city government restricting, ending or periodically clearing the locks. Neither sweep found one. Neither found a source saying the opposite either. The honest position is that no removal programme exists on the record, and no schedule of clear-outs has ever been published.

The positive evidence is stronger than the absence of negative evidence. Seoul's visitor page for the tower still lists the Locks of Love as one of its attractions, and the city's brand new night walking tour, announced in September 2026, routes participants past the love lock deck between the tower and Palgakjeong. A government would not build an official guided route around a feature it was planning to remove. Visitor accounts from February and April 2026 describe buying locks at the tower on site, including branded locks engraved there and then.

What this means in practice: if you are planning to add a lock, nothing official stands in your way. If you have read somewhere that the locks were cut down or banned, that claim does not come from the tower, the plaza or the city. For the fuller treatment of the removal question, including why the rumour keeps resurfacing, see the companion post do they remove the locks at Namsan Tower.

The locks themselves cost you nothing once you own a padlock. The one part of the summit that carries a price is the observation deck inside the tower, and if seeing Seoul from behind glass is part of your plan, the ticket options above cover the three most common ways to do it: the standard observatory ticket, a fast-track version, and a package that bundles the cable car.

Can you still put a lock on the Namsan railing?

Yes. Visitors in 2026 report buying padlocks on site, including branded locks with engraving done at the tower, and clipping them to the railings. The practice is active, promoted by the city, and requires no ticket, no booking and no fee beyond the lock itself. Nothing about where locks are sold or what they cost has been verified, so this guide does not repeat a figure for either.

The ritual itself is simple and unchanged. You bring or buy a padlock, attach it to an available spot on the mesh fencing, and, in the classic version, throw the key somewhere you cannot get it back. Some visitors write or engrave names or dates on the lock first. Visitor accounts from 2026 describe engraving services offered with branded locks at the tower, framed here as what visitors report, because the site's research did not verify the sellers or their prices.

What this guide will not do is invent the details that most lock write-ups state with false confidence. How many locks there are, what they weigh collectively, when the practice started, and which specific terrace or floor they occupy: none of these has a primary source behind it. The tower operator does not publish them, the city does not publish them, and the numbers that circulate are copies of copies. That the locks exist, that they are part of what the city itself promotes on Namsan, and that visitors are still adding to them: those three things are solid.

If you want the full current picture of the ritual, including what visitors say about the engraving stalls, the companion post can you still put locks on the love lock bridge covers it in detail.

Is the love lock terrace free to visit?

Yes, completely. Namsan Park, the summit plaza, the terraces around the tower base, the love locks, the Palgakjeong pavilion area, the beacon mound, the Seoul City Wall path, the plaza shops and cafes, the Namsan Ormi inclined elevator and the cable car company's Myeongdong shuttle bus are all free. The only ticketed thing on the mountain is the observation deck inside the tower.

This free-versus-paid boundary is the most useful single fact about Namsan, and it is worth stating precisely because so much online writing blurs it. Seoul's official tourism site answers the question directly: the entrance to Namsan Park is free. The tower operator's own floor plan shows the observatory entrance sitting at Plaza 5F with the ticket machine and gift shop beside it, and every shop, cafe and terrace below and outside that gate is open without a ticket. The operator's FAQ confirms that The Place Dining on Tower 2F can be used without buying an observatory admission, which is only possible if the ticket gates the deck and nothing else.

The practical upshot for a lock visit: you can reach the summit, walk the terraces, add your lock, photograph the tower, eat at the plaza and come back down without ever buying a ticket. The observatory is an optional extra, not a gate on the mountain. If you do want the deck as well, the standard online option is the N Seoul Tower Observatory ticket, from US$15.25 per adult, rated 4.6 across 34,365 reviews. Check availability

How do you get to the lock terraces?

There is no road for private cars up Namsan, so everyone arrives by cable car, by the 01A or 01B circular shuttle bus, by Seoul City Tour Bus, or on foot. The cable car runs 10:00 to 23:00 every day, the circular buses 06:30 to 23:00, and the free Namsan Ormi inclined elevator links Namsan Tunnel 3 to the cable car station. All of them end at the summit, where the locks are.

Private vehicles have been barred from Namsan since 1 May 2005, for ecological protection, with tighter restrictions on tour buses since August 2021. Only the shuttle buses, the Seoul City Tour Bus and vehicles carrying a disabled person's ID sticker get through. That constraint shapes every journey to the locks.

The walking routes have their own character. The Sam-soon Steps, beside the Seoul Education Research and Information Institute, take 40 minutes up to Palgakjeong and are known from the drama "My Lovely Sam-soon". The Namsan Public Library entrance to the Southern Circuit takes 30 minutes, and the National Theater of Korea offers both a 40-minute route from its ticket booth and a 30-minute route via the steps beside the theatre. Those four times are YTN Seoul Tower's own published figures, and they are the only sourced walk times on the mountain; every other path should be judged by eye, uphill, steep in places, and often longer than it looks.

New since late 2025 is the Namsan Sky Forest Trail, a barrier-free timber deck path opened on 25 October 2025, built with the Korea Forest Service so that wheelchair users and older visitors can get up the mountain. It links the Huam-dong Namsan Fitness Center to the Namsan Library, passing the Sunset Observatory, the Wind View Bridge, a pine rest area and the Wellness Garden. The same works closed the unofficial side paths that walkers had worn into the hillside and restored them, so freestyle routes up are no longer an option: use the official trails. For the full picture on routes and transport, see how to get to N Seoul Tower.

Why did N Seoul Tower become a love lock landmark?

The tower's position as Seoul's most visible romantic symbol, reinforced by decades of drama filming, the rotating restaurant and the city's own promotion of the Locks of Love, made its railings the natural home for the ritual. Seoul's government now lists the locks among Namsan's official attractions, and the tower's appearance in the 2025 Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters has added a new wave of visitors retracing scenes.

The honest answer to "why here" has layers. Namsan has been Seoul's lookout and its beacon station for centuries; the Bongsudae mound below the tower is a restored Joseon-era signal station, Seoul Monument No. 14. When the observatory opened to the public in October 1980, the summit became the place the whole city goes to see itself, and the view is genuinely wide: the operator states that on a clear day you can see up to 50 km, from Achasan in the east to Bukhansan in the north.

Romance attached itself to that altitude. The Sam-soon Steps carry the name of a television drama. The cable car company markets sunset-to-night as its recommended riding time and lists the love locks as one of its three attraction cards. The city's April feature on Namsan names the Locks of Love, the heart chairs and the sticker photo booths together as the mountain's romantic kit. Each institution leaned into the theme, and the railings filled.

The newest layer is film-driven. Netflix's own locations guide for KPop Demon Hunters, released 20 June 2025, gives the tower its own section and describes the climax staged on the hill of Namsan, with writer-director Chris Appelhans quoted calling the tower "a beacon at the heart of the city, summoning everybody." The Korea Times ran a feature retracing the film's Seoul locations headed at the tower, and Seoul's mayor publicly tied Namsan's visitor surge to the film while inspecting the new trail works. The tower's on-screen story is covered in full in N Seoul Tower on screen.

When is the best time to visit the love locks?

Visitor reports through 2026 consistently describe weekends, public holidays and evenings as the busy windows at both the tower and the cable car, with weekday visits and the early or late ends of the day quieter. The observatory is open 365 days a year, 10:00 to 22:30 on weekdays and 10:00 to 23:00 on weekends and holidays, with last admission 30 minutes before closing. No source anywhere states a wait in clock terms.

The qualitative pattern comes from two directions that agree: the cable car company's own advice says mornings are quieter than afternoons and that boarding waits can get long at weekends, and visitor reports from July and August 2026 repeat the same shape. What no source provides, and what this site will not invent, is a number. Anyone quoting a wait in minutes for the cable car or the observatory is estimating.

One genuinely new factor for evening visitors: since September 2026, the city runs its free guided night walk over the summit with two fixed departures, at 18:00 and at 20:00, passing the love lock deck on the way to Palgakjeong. The night-tour season now runs from mid-March through mid-November. That means the summit in the evening has a scheduled group arriving that did not exist a year ago, alongside the usual sunset crowd the cable car company recommends. The tour is booked in advance through the city's own walking tour site, not on the day.

For planning around the whole day rather than one moment, the tower's lighting comes on after dark, though no operator or city source publishes a switch-on time; the times that circulate online exist only in third-party guides repeating each other. The observatory's published closing time is the one fixed clock fact on the mountain.

What else is at the summit besides the locks?

The summit offers the free Palgakjeong pavilion and plaza, the Bongsudae beacon mound, the Seoul City Wall trail, the heart chairs, photo booths, and the Seoul Tower Plaza shops and cafes including Starbucks, GS25, bhc Chicken and Gong Cha, plus the tower's own restaurants from n.Grill on Tower 7F down to N Burger on Tower 1F. Only the observation deck levels inside the tower need a ticket.

The free layer is bigger than most visitors expect. Around the base: Namsan Bongsudae, the restored Joseon signal station; Baekbeom Square with its Kim Koo statue, created 1968; Waryong Shrine, Seoul Folk Material No. 5; the Ahn Jung-geun Memorial Museum at 91 Sowol-ro, open 10:00 to 18:00 March to October and 10:00 to 17:00 November to February; and the Seoul City Wall trail, Historic Site No. 10, running from Sungnyemun to Jangchung Gymnasium. The plaza in front of Palgakjeong is the spot the tower operator itself directs picnickers to, since outside food cannot be eaten inside the tower building.

The paid layer is the tower interior, and it changed shape slightly in 2026. N Burger closed for renewal in March 2026 and came back as a K-style handmade burger house with a Korean-flavoured menu built around a Seoul bulgogi burger, Korean-seasoned chicken, a tower-shaped takeout cup and its own lager, per the operator's newsroom. N Terrace reopened after its own short renewal in the same works. Everything else on the operator's current pages remains as it was: n.Grill, the rotating French restaurant whose dining room completes one full rotation in 1 hour 40 minutes; HanCook, the Korean grill on Tower 3F; The Place Dining on Tower 2F, reachable without an observatory ticket; Durumi Bunsik, A Twosome Place, N Sweet Bar, WiggleWiggle and N Photo. An advance n.Grill reservation includes free observatory admission, and dining at HanCook earns a discount on it.

One thing that is not there: the Teddy Bear Museum closed permanently on 30 November 2013, per the operator's own notice, and any guide still listing it is years out of date. The full food picture, including the renewed burger house, is in N Seoul Tower restaurants.

If the deck is on your list, the standard observatory ticket is the straightforward option: from US$15.25 per adult, it covers the observation levels inside the tower, and buying online skips the ticket counter at the tower itself.

Should you combine the locks with the cable car or a fast-track ticket?

The lock terraces need no ticket at all, so the only reason to buy anything is the observatory, the cable car ride, or both. The observatory-plus-cable-car package runs US$28.05 but requires collecting a physical ticket at a partner shop in Myeongdong first, and collection closes at 18:00. The fast-track option is US$40.85, though a buyer reported no visible fast-track lane.

These three options suit three different visitors, and the differences matter more than the prices suggest. The cable car package is the only one that solves the two paid things at once, the deck and the ride, but its Myeongdong collection step is a real constraint: you must pick up a physical ticket at a partner shop in Myeongdong before heading up, and the shop stops handing them out at 18:00. Arrive after that and the package has failed you. Note also that the package is a reseller bundle, not an official combined product from the operators themselves, and reviewers disagree about whether the cable car leg it includes runs one way or round trip, so check what the live listing says before you rely on a return ride.

The fast-track option is the one to be sceptical about. It is priced well above the standard ticket, and the only verified detail about it is a buyer's report that there was no visible fast-track lane on their visit. What any online observatory ticket reliably does is skip the ticket counter, not the cable car queue or any other line. If you are visiting at a quiet weekday time, the standard ticket at US$15.25 does the same job for less.

The cocktail option pairs the observatory ticket with a drink; no price for it is published, so check the live listing for the current figure. And if you are weighing the cable car on its own merits rather than as part of a bundle, the fare table and the full case for and against are in the Namsan cable car guide.

Planning your visit: the honest checklist

Take a lock or plan to buy one on site, arrive by cable car, bus or an official trail since cars cannot drive up, and remember that everything outside the tower is free. Weekday mornings are the quiet window visitors report, the observatory closes at 22:30 on weekdays and 23:00 on weekends, and the city's free guided night walk now passes the locks at 18:00 and 20:00 daily through mid-November.

A few practical notes that come straight from the operators. The whole Namsan area is non-smoking under the National Parks Act, with a stated fine of KRW 100,000. Pets may not be brought inside N Seoul Tower itself, though they are allowed in the shared plaza area if leashed and cleaned up after, subject to each store's own rules. Outside food cannot be eaten inside the tower; the operator directs picnickers to the plaza in front of Palgakjeong. Wheelchairs and strollers can be borrowed at the information desk. Observatory tickets are valid on the day of purchase only, and are sold at the Plaza 5F information desk, the Tower 1F ticket booth and the Plaza 5F self-service machine.

The city's transport picture changed recently in one way that matters to anyone who read an older Seoul guide. The flat-rate 30-day Climate Card was discontinued: it could be recharged only until 31 August 2026, and its replacement, the Climate Pass released 1 September 2026, is available to Seoul residents only, based on place of residence. Visitors can still use short-term passes of one, two, three, five and seven days on existing cards, with fares on the city's own transport page. For the single journey to Namsan, a standard transport card covers the metro and the KRW 1,500 circular bus fare without any pass at all.

Common questions about the N Seoul Tower love locks

The love locks are the part of Namsan that asks the least of you: no ticket, no timing, no planning beyond getting up the hill. Bring a lock if you want to add one, or just come to read the thousands already there. Everything around the railings, from Palgakjeong to the beacon mound to the plaza cafes, is open to anyone who makes the climb, and the one paid door on the summit, the observatory, is yours to walk past or through. For more on planning the whole summit day, Namsan Tower Seoul carries guides on tickets, transport, the observatory and the mountain's trails.