Street trees at lunch, and a planned stay in the woods

At lunch you can walk under a row of street trees and feel your shoulders drop. A campus comparison of forest therapy in Germany, Japan, and Korea starts right there: the small hill near home, a planted grove, a city park, even the trees beside a large building, all offer a green pause. The paper says that just being in a forest can make city people feel they are taking in health. Formal forest therapy is the next step — a stay that has been planned, signed, and staffed.

A pretty lunch-hour path and a booked weekend in a healing forest can feel related, and they are still different kinds of outing. Korea's Forest Welfare Institute puts the official program in everyday words: a way to keep up health and support immunity, planned and staffed, rather than a walk you invent on the day.

Korea: a legal definition, and a map of healing forests

Korean statute gives the idea a short, usable definition. Article 2 of the Forestry Culture and Recreation Act defines forest healing (산림치유) as activities that use various elements of nature, such as scent and scenery, to raise immunity and promote health. The Korea Forest Welfare Institute, on its introduction page, says this is not a medical treatment; it is an activity that helps people maintain health and support immunity. The Forest Welfare Promotion Act then places healing, culture, recreation, and forest education together as forest-welfare services, and names forest healing instructors among the specialists who deliver them.

On the ground, that system looks like a reserved forest with a walking course, a rest area, and a program you can book. The Institute operates national facilities that include the National Forest Healing Center and a set of designated healing forests. The live list of sites, phone numbers, and programs changes, so fowi.or.kr is the page to open before you travel. A lunch-hour park walk and a booked weekend at a healing forest are related, but they are not the same appointment.

Japan: shinrin-yoku, and certified therapy bases

Japan's everyday word is shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, and it has travelled widely as a way of talking about time under the trees. The Forestry Agency has published explanations of physiological research on walking and sitting in forests, and a joint press release of 18 April 2006 announced the first certifications of forest-therapy bases and therapy roads after field tests and a review of facilities and access. The idea is a course you can walk, with a program and, in many places, a guide, rather than an unmarked trail you pick on the day.

If you are in Tokyo on a Saturday, the practical question is less a theory than a reservation: which certified base is reachable, what does the local program actually include, and is there a short course for first-time walkers. Current lists are kept by the bodies that run certification, including the Forest Therapy Society; use those lists, not a memory of the first handful of sites from 2006. The agency's own pages also caution that scientific evidence is still being built, even where studies are cited.

Germany, as the campus comparison tells it, and a careful comparison

The campus paper describes Germany as a country where interest in natural healing grew around forests and hot springs, and where climate therapy, terrain therapy, and nature health resorts have taken the form of forest recreation villages and related programs. Germany also has a long spa and Kur tradition, with designated spa towns and a clear program in many stays. If you are booking, read the designation and the program of the Land and the Kurort you will actually visit, rather than treating 'forest and spa' as one national product.

Put side by side, Korea gives the practice a statutory definition and a map of healing forests and instructors; Japan gives it a public research trail and a certification of bases and roads; Germany, in this comparison, sits in a spa-and-climate landscape that is older than the Korean statute. A reader in a Gulf city, or in a dense Chinese or American downtown, may start with a well-kept urban park. The formal programs are what you add when you want a stay that has been named and staffed.

Sources

1. Forestry Culture and Recreation Act, Article 2 (definition of forest healing) — law.go.kr.
2. Forest Welfare Promotion Act, Article 2 (forest-welfare services and specialists, including forest healing instructors) — law.go.kr; text in force as amended, including the version effective 1 October 2025.
3. Korea Forest Welfare Institute, introduction to forest healing (not a medical treatment; statutory definition) and facility pages — https://fowi.or.kr/user/contents/contentsView.do?cntntsId=346 and https://fowi.or.kr/user/contents/contentsView.do?cntntsId=358
4. Forestry Agency of Japan, health and recreation functions of forests, with cited field studies — https://www.rinya.maff.go.jp/j/keikaku/tamenteki/con_2_6.html
5. Forestry Agency, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, and related bodies, press release of 18 April 2006 on the first certification of forest-therapy bases and therapy roads — https://www.rinya.maff.go.jp/puresu/h18-4gatu/0418wagakunino.html
6. A campus comparison of forest stays in Germany, Japan, and Korea, including city green space and a description of German climate-and-spa practice.

Last updated: 14 November 2026