We’re going back a couple months to our trip to Busan. We made the decision to take a detour and visit the Goseong Dinosaur Museum on the way down. Was it really on the way? No. In fact, I think it actually added two hours total onto our drive. Still, it was nice to get out of the car for a couple hours and the kids loved the interactive (albeit small) museum.
Goseong Dinosaur Museum
I originally heard about the Goseong Dinosaur Museum from Loving Life Moore – although I can’t really remember why it stuck out to me. Maybe my kids were on a dinosaur kick when I read her post? Whatever the reason, it made it onto the bucket list and we made it happen on a rainy day in September. I don’t know what my expectations were for the museum, but it did exceed them. It was small (and almost completely empty the day we went), but that was perfect since we only had about two hours before we needed to get back on the road.
The dinosaur bones were incredible and the kids loved walking through the dinosaurs mouth into the cave over and over and over (and over and over and over…) again. H (age 2) was just walking around yelling “rawr!” at everything and M (age 4) just kept saying how scary all the dinosaurs were. Still, even she had a good time, despite being scared of almost everything. We hit up the interactive section of the museum where there was a “light race” game – which let you see how fast you could run in comparison to a variety of dino species – a green screen, and so many other things for the kids to enjoy. There was ample space for the little ones to run wild and crazy and so much for the older kids to read and learn about (with a little help from Google Translate in some cases).
There was a 3D Adventure that we got pushed into participating in by one of the workers. It was all in Korean with no subtitles, but it was 3D Dinosaurs, so you can bet none of us were complaining! It was the favorite exhibit for some of our kids (although it definitely left me with a massive headache as all 3D movies do). Our children continue to be [mostly] uninterested in museums, but they loved this dinosaur museum. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Korea knows how to do museums and make them interesting for everyone (remember Gwacheon National Science Museum??). That is one thing that I’ll miss SO MUCH about Korea. Museums are extra beyond all reason, cheap, and catered to ALL ages.
In all, would we go all the way back to Goseong for this museum? Probably not. But if we ever found ourselves in the area again, you can be sure that we would try to make it back!
’til next time…
Ash
How to visit the Goseong Dinosaur Museum
Directions & Parking: Use this link for the Goseong Dinosaur Museum parking lot or paste 경남 고성군 하이면 자란만로 618 into Naver. The parking lot is large, however, we could not get the kiosk to accept any of our American credit cards (AMEX or Visa) when we went to pay. I suggest stopping at the front desk on your way out and using Papago or Google Translate to communicate. The lady at the front desk was kind and allowed us to pay her with cash while she used her own credit card to pay for our parking.
Cost:
Adults – ₩3,000
Teens (13-18) – ₩2,000
Children (3-12) – ₩1,500
Children under 3 – FREE
Hours:
CLOSED: Mondays, January 1st, Tuesday if the previous Monday was a public holiday
March – October
Tuesday – Sunday: 9:00am – 6:00pm
November – February
Tuesday – Sunday: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Last admission one hour before closing.
