With cherry blossoms signaling the arrival of warm weather, it's the season to dig out the tent, hiking boots and barbecue grill and head for the country. It's the time to exchange neon lights for starry skies and colored sunsets and yellow dust for a fresh sea breeze. It's time to go camping.

Finding a good campsite in one of the world's most densely populated nations can be tough and not all campsites are created equal. The aesthetics of peacefulness, natural beauty, accessibility and comfort must be considered when selecting a spot.

Arriving at a far-off campsite filled with swarms of car campers is not ideal. Pitching a tent in the dark and waking up in a rice field isn't optimal either. You must give yourself some time to find a good place to pitch a tent.

Contrary to popular thought, Korea is overflowing with campsites for the person who yearns for a quiet congress with nature. However, you won't find these spots in the guide books. Here are a few suggestions of places to look.

Mountains of lesser renown

Some 23 million people visited the country's national parks in 2002, according to the National Parks Authority. Many of these visitors were hikers who made a beeline for the park's highest summit. The trail shelters and campsites along these routes are almost always full on the weekends. It's impossible to find a campsite that stands out from the crowd when you're in the crowd.

But the mountains at the park's boundary are almost untouched. Just because they are 200 meters shorter than their higher-altitude neighbors doesn't mean they are any less beautiful and scenic.

However, it does mean that it is possible to backpack for an entire day and not see another human being. For those who want to experience nature and simply be alone, this is what matters.

The toughest part about camping in the mountain backcountry is finding a level spot to pitch a tent that is relatively clear of underbrush. You might find your only choices being a flat rock precipice that has a staggering view, a meadow of briars that formed from a past forest fire, or a fire road that snakes halfway up the mountain.

Korea's hidden lakes

There are few natural lakes in Korea, but in the last 50 years, more than 18,000 manmade lakes have been built across the country. Their purposes are flood control and providing community water supplies and irrigation water. For the bootleg camper, they are one of the top picks to pitch a tent.

These reservoirs can be scouted out by looking across farm fields for earthen embankments. From a distance, they look unassuming and hardly noticeable, but once you climb up the side, you're overlooking a quiet lake. On road maps, some appear as small blue specks and usually turn out to be modest lakes the size of two football fields. Some of the large ones, like Andong Lake and Chungju Lake, were formed by massive dam construction that flooded multiple mountain valleys, creating miles of bays, coves and inlets.

Most have trails that edge the lakeside and since some of these reservoirs were created where villages once existed, it is not uncommon to see stone-hewn walls submerged in the water and hedgerows of ornamental trees growing wild.

Here too, you might be hard pressed to find a horizontal spot to set up your tent due to the way the lake was formed - that is, by flooding a mountain valley. Thus, much of the area surrounding the lake will be steep and angled. The best places to look are small extended points that used to be flat hill ridges, and abandoned terraced rice paddies of long forgotten farms.

On the river's edge

The sandbars of Korean rivers are another top choice when searching for the perfect campsite. As experienced campers know, pitching camp on river bottoms puts you in danger of flash floods. Prudent advice for the rainy season, but for most of the year, the water level is low enough to be safe, and the sandbars that are revealed are among the most comfortable places to camp.

The trick to finding a good spot is to cut away from the highway that follows the river and get on an access road that tops the river's embankment. Often these are dirt roads that are used by farmers who work the fertile floodplains. By slowly cruising along, you'll have a greater view of the river from above.

Unlike camping in the mountains or lakesides, finding a place to pitch a tent is a matter of taste and good sense. Having a huge wide-open sandbar before you, its best to set up camp far back from the water's edge in case a rain comes at night 100 kilometers upriver and the water starts to rise. After that, break out the Frisbee and sink the beer in a coldwater rock trap as a makeshift cooler.

Your very own micro beach

On almost all maps, beaches are noted by an umbrella symbol. These are the tourist beaches, the ones that get hit hard in the spring and summer. Although some of the out-of-the-way smaller beaches might offer some solitude and peacefulness, most aren't worth a visit for the camper who wants to get away from it all.

Tucked into Korea's rugged coastline, between outcroppings of rock and slabs of barnacle covered boulders, are small thin crescents of sand. These "micro beaches" can stretch 100 meters in length with quality ranging from coarse gravel to surprisingly fine-grained sand.

Ray Fuentes, an expat resident on Namhae Island, has his own secret beach. It's inaccessible from the small cliffs on either side so he lashed a rope ladder to a pine tree in order to scale down. "I came across it snorkeling at a place I often go to. My face was down in the water and as I came around a reef of rocks, I looked up and there it was. I never even knew it was there," he said.

About 10 meters of speckled sand, it's enough for him when he wants to slip away. "My wife likes it because she can sunbathe undisturbed. I like it for the typical weekend warrior stuff: grilling out, swimming and blasting reggae music out to sea - it bounces off those rock walls pretty good," said Fuentes.

Too small to be marked on any maps, finding a micro beach is most often a matter of exploring around the next bend in the coastline. Since most of us don't have a boat to survey the coastline like a pirate looking for a hideout, the best thing to do is to explore the finger-like peninsulas that jut out far into the sea. From there, you'll get the best view of the coastline on each side of the peninsula and might find a secluded spot that suits your standards.

Getting away for a weekend camp-out can entail some planning and research, getting your hands on the best maps possible and a commitment to explore the surrounding countryside. Chris Kovacs is an expatriate who lives in the small coastal city of Gwangyang.

After living in Seoul and Busan for five years, this former urbanite is now enjoying a side of Korea that he previously only got a glimpse of.

"After years of city life, it's a dream come true to be able to live in clean, green South Jeolla Province at the foot of the mountains beside the sea. It's a shame more visitors to Korea don't get the chance to get away from the crowds and explore more of the country," said Kovacs. "The Korean outdoors - and the system of national parks in place to protect it - is one of the best-kept secrets in Asia."

Copyright © James Card.