The night Ajin asked to see the stars and we ended up in Gapyeong

It was a Tuesday evening in May 2026 when Ajin came home from kindergarten with a drawing that looked like a jagged triangle surrounded by yellow scribbles. She told me it was a tent and that her friend Minji went to sleep under the stars. At four years old, Ajin has developed this incredible ability to make me feel like I am denying her the world if I don't say yes to her whims. I looked at the drawing, then at Haneul, who was currently hiding under the coffee table because the vacuum cleaner was in the same room. The idea of taking a timid, six-year-old Maltese who shakes at the sight of a butterfly into the wild seemed like a recipe for a headache. But then Ajin looked at me with those eyes, and before I knew it, I was scrolling through booking sites for glamping spots near Seoul.

My husband spent the night searching and insisted we change the destination

I had originally found a place with a giant pink slide and a shallow pool that I knew Ajin would love. It looked perfect for a May afternoon. But when I showed it to my husband, he didn't look at the slide. He zoomed in on the photos of the tent interiors. He started muttering about the hardwood floors being too slick for Haneul's back legs. Since Haneul's patellar luxation diagnosis last year, my husband has become a self-appointed expert on friction coefficients and non-slip surfaces. He spent the next three hours with three different tabs open, comparing the floor materials of every glamping site in Gapyeong.

'This one says they have pet-specific mats throughout the entire zone,' he said, pointing to a screen filled with spreadsheets he'd apparently started. He was searching more than I was, looking at reviews from two years ago just to see if anyone mentioned the gap in the fences. He convinced me that while Ajin would be happy anywhere with a marshmallow, Haneul needed a fortress of safety. So, we canceled my initial choice and booked a pet-friendly glamping site that promised 'orthopedic comfort' for dogs. It was a bit further into the mountains of Gapyeong, about a two-hour drive from our home in Seoul, but his anxiety made me realize I hadn't been thinking enough about our furry son.

The moment we arrived I wondered if we had made a huge mistake

We tried to go with a 'backpacking' concept. I thought, it's just one night, how much could a 4-year-old and a small dog possibly need? I packed two large rucksacks, feeling very proud of my minimalism. That pride lasted until we pulled into the gravel driveway at 3:00 PM. The 1박 (one night) cost us 250,000 KRW, and looking at the tent, it felt much smaller than the wide-angle lens photos had suggested. The air was already biting, much colder than the city, and the smell of damp earth and pine hit us immediately.

Ajin was ecstatic, screaming 'The stars! Where are the stars?' even though the sun was still high. Haneul, on the other hand, refused to step out of the car. When I finally carried him to the tent, he crawled into the furthest corner of the non-slip mat my husband had insisted on and turned into a white, shivering ball of fur. He wouldn't even look at his favorite dried sweet potato treats. I stood there, looking at my overstuffed backpack—which was actually mostly filled with Ajin's 'just in case' clothes and Haneul's emergency diapers—and wondered why we didn't just stay home and watch a documentary about space on the couch. The reality of 'minimalist travel' with a toddler and a pet is that you always forget the one thing you actually need, which in this case, was Haneul's favorite stuffed duck that usually helps him calm down.

Waking up to the mountain air reminded me why people do this

Dinner was a blur of trying to keep Ajin away from the hot grill and trying to convince Haneul that the sound of a distant owl wasn't a monster coming to get him. But as the night settled in, something changed. The floor heating in the tent was surprisingly powerful. My husband had been worried about the cold, but it was so warm that Ajin ended up kicking off her blankets, her cheeks flushed pink from the heat and the excitement. We didn't see a million stars because of some light clouds, but we saw enough to satisfy a four-year-old's imagination.

The real magic happened at 7:00 AM. I opened the tent zipper, and the crisp, cold mountain air rushed in, smelling of woodsmoke and wet grass. Ajin woke up and immediately started giggling, pointing at a squirrel on a nearby tree. And then there was Haneul. He didn't hide. He stepped out onto the grass, his nose twitching a mile a minute. He spent the next hour patrolling the small fenced-in yard of our tent, his tail held high for the first time since we left Seoul. Seeing him finally relax and watching Ajin try to 'share' her breakfast bread with him made the 250,000 KRW and the cramped sleeping quarters feel like a bargain. Even the extra 20,000 KRW pet fee felt worth it when I saw Haneul actually refuse to get back into the car when it was time to leave. He sat firmly on the grass, looking at us as if to say, 'I live here now.'

Pudding greeted us at the door and now I have a new homework assignment

When we finally pulled back into our apartment parking lot, my back was aching from the thin mattress, and my car smelled like a mix of wet dog and campfire smoke. As soon as we opened the front door, Pudding was there, sitting on the shoe rack with her usual aloof expression. She gave us a look that clearly said, 'You smell like the outdoors, and I find it offensive.' But within five minutes, she was rubbing her short Munchkin legs against the very bags we hadn't unpacked yet, sniffing the scent of the mountains we’d brought back.

I felt a pang of guilt looking at her. We left her behind because we thought the terrain would be too rough for her short legs and her solitary nature. But seeing how much Haneul changed in just 24 hours makes me wonder if I'm being too protective of her. The glamping site had a lot of high wooden steps that would be a challenge for a Munchkin, and the thought of her getting stuck under a tent platform gives me anxiety. My husband is already back on his laptop, probably looking for 'flat-terrain cat-friendly glamping' or something equally specific. I don't know if we'll ever be a family that travels with both a dog and a cat, or if this will just be another one of those things I worry about until the next time Ajin draws a picture of a forest. For now, I'm just glad to be back in a house with real walls, even if Ajin is already asking when we can go back to sleep in the 'triangle house' again.