Korean Saunas That Have Closed — But Still Show Up in Travel Guides (Checked August 2026)

Seven floors, right next to Yongsan Station, and for years the default answer to "where do I try a jjimjilbang in Seoul." It entered what was announced as a temporary suspension in 2021 and never reopened, even after distancing rules ended. No formal closure notice has ever been issued.

The evidence is consistent: the official website no longer resolves, the venue disappeared from Naver Map listings in mid-2025, and the lower floors of the building are now occupied by other businesses. Because the building is still standing, photographs of it look perfectly normal. (Verified 11 August 2026)

There is no real 24-hour replacement within walking distance of Yongsan or Seoul Station, so plan on a 15 to 20 minute subway ride. Alternatives are listed at https://luwei.kr/places/dragon-hill-spa-yongsan

Unlike the other two, this one does not leave you standing in front of a shuttered building. It leaves you in front of a construction site. Operations stopped in early 2020 as COVID spread, the building was demolished and the lot ran as a car park for a while, and the site has since gone on the market for a mixed-use development. (Verified 11 August 2026)

English-language sources still describe it as Itaewon's 24-hour jjimjilbang. Because of where it stood it was a standard stop for foreign visitors, and since you could sleep there it also turns up on budget-accommodation lists.

Nothing within walking distance of Itaewon or Hannam replaces it. See https://luwei.kr/places/itaewon-land-yongsan for alternatives.

This was the most-recommended 24-hour bathhouse within walking distance of Seoul Station, known for its deep bedrock water and its bulgama kiln. Search the address, 49 Jungnim-ro in Jung-gu, on a map today and no sauna comes up. What remains is Siloam Parking. We could not establish the closure date or the reason. (Verified 9 August 2026)

Listings survive on Tripadvisor, Trip.com and similar platforms, with reviews intact. A live listing on a travel platform is not evidence that a venue is open.

Alternatives near Seoul Station are at https://luwei.kr/places/siloam-sauna

Siloam Sauna. If a search result shows a Siloam Sauna that is open, it is a different business, at 171 Yongmasan-ro in Junggok-dong, Gwangjin-gu. It genuinely operates, charges 11,000 KRW for a daytime sauna and closes at 10 PM. It is nowhere near Seoul Station and has no connection to the Jungnim-dong venue described above. (Verified 12 August 2026)

Cheonjiyeon Bulhanjeungmak. Several English guides list a Cheonjiyeon in Myeongdong. There is no such venue in Myeongdong. The real one is Cheonjiyeon Bulhanjeungmak Spa World at 623 Yongmasan-ro, Sinnae-dong, Jungnang-gu, open 24 hours year round. It sits out by Sangbong, roughly 40 minutes from Myeongdong by subway. (Verified 12 August 2026)

One more. Songdo is a place name in Seo-gu, Busan and also in Yeonsu-gu, Incheon. If you search for a Songdo hot spring or seawater bath, check which city the address is in before you plan around it.

Because so many large bathhouses shut at once during the pandemic, a general impression stuck that Seoul's jjimjilbang scene had simply disappeared. Some of them came back.

Sparex closed temporarily during COVID and is operating again. Both the Dongdaemun branch in the Good Morning City basement (Euljiro 6-ga, Jung-gu) and the Dongmyo branch (19 Jibong-ro, Jongno-gu, 13th floor) show as open 24 hours, year round. The Dongdaemun branch in particular, with its hanok-style interior, draws a lot of foreign visitors after appearing on Korean television. (Verified 12 August 2026)

If you read somewhere that a venue has closed, check when that page was written. Anything from 2021 or 2022 may no longer describe the present.

1. Search the name on Naver Map. In Korea, Naver updates commercial listings far faster than Google does. If a venue does not appear there at all, treat that as a strong signal.

2. Look at the date of the most recent visitor review. However many photos there are, no review in the last three months is worth a second look.

3. Call. If the recorded message says the venue is temporarily closed due to COVID, that is not a description of today. It is a recording from years ago that nobody removed.

4. Government pages are not necessarily current either. The Haeundae-gu office page listing hot spring bathhouses, for instance, carries a last-modified date of 29 January 2024. Even official sources deserve a glance at the update date.

5. Google Maps' "Open now" label is unreliable in Korea. The reverse also holds: absence from Google Maps does not mean a place is gone. Older saunas in commercial-building basements frequently have no listing at all.

The normal thing to do when a venue closes is to delete its page. We do the opposite: we mark it closed and keep the page, with three alternatives listed on it.

The reasoning is simple. Delete the page and anyone searching that name still lands on an old blog post and still travels to an address where nothing is left. Keeping the page and saying plainly that this one is gone and here is where to go instead is more useful than a clean index.

Where we could not establish an actual closure date, we publish the date we verified the status rather than inventing one. If you find something wrong here, tell us. We will check it and correct it.