Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Gardens & parks
세종특별자치시
What began as a bank clerk's hobby, growing orchids with his wife in a small greenhouse after work, has grown over more than half a century into an arboretum of some 330,000 m². At Beartree Park in Jeondong-myeon, Sejong, around 100 Asiati…
Gardens & parks
파주시
Byukchoji Gardens in Gwangtan-myeon, Paju, is a private arboretum that brings Eastern and Western garden styles together in one place. Byukchoji Pond, fringed with weeping willows and a pavilion, gives way to a Versailles-style French gard…
National parks
부안군
Byeonsanbando National Park is Korea's only peninsula national park, taking in both mountains and sea. Inland, Naebyeonsan has Jikso Falls, rocky peaks and deep valleys; on the coast, Oebyeonsan offers sea cliffs such as Chaeseokgang and J…
Fortresses
안산시
Two low hills in Choji-dong, Ansan, are joined by a stone wall. It is what remains of a coastal fortress built in the early Joseon period to keep Japanese pirates out of Namyang Bay, and today about 225 m of wall runs through the trees lik…
Churches & monasteries
포항시
Bogyeongsa sits at the foot of Naeyeonsan Mountain in the north of Pohang and is the largest temple in the city. Its name means "temple of the precious mirror", and it comes from a founding legend about a mirror buried in the ground. From…
Churches & monasteries
파주시
Bogwangsa, at the foot of Goryeongsan in Gwangtan-myeon, Paju, was the temple that cared for Soryeongwon, the tomb of Lady Choe, mother of King Yeongjo. Royal connections are everywhere: a main-hall name board said to be in Yeongjo's own h…
Coast & islands
완도군
Off the south-west of Wando, Bogildo is best known as the island where the Joseon poet Yun Seon-do stopped on his way to Jeju and stayed to build a garden retreat. Yet the island as a whole has much more to offer: the Yesong-ri pebble beac…
Gardens & parks
완도군
On Bogildo, an island in the sea south of Wando, survives the garden that the Joseon poet Yun Seondo (pen name Gosan) shaped with his own hands over more than a decade. He dammed a stream to make ponds and set pavilions on the natural rock…
Gardens & parks
서울특별시
Boramae Park covers about 41 hectares across Dongjak-gu and Gwanak-gu in southwest Seoul, on the former site of the Korea Air Force Academy. Between the wide lawns, ponds and musical fountain stands the "Air Park", a group of retired milit…
Coast & islands
보령시
About two and a half hours from Seoul by train, halfway down the west coast, a beach so long you can barely see its end stretches along the shore. Daecheon Beach is the largest beach on Korea's west coast, about 3.5 km long and 100 m wide.…
Churches & monasteries
보령시
Head east from central Boryeong into the valleys of Seongjusan and you reach a wide lawn ringed by mountains, with four stone pagodas standing in a row. This is the site of Seongjusa, once one of the great Zen monasteries of Silla. Its hal…
Fortresses
보령시
On a hill behind Ocheon Harbour in Boryeong stand the stone walls of what was once the naval headquarters of Joseon's Chungcheong Province. The fortress looks out over the mouth of Cheonsu Bay, so from the walls you take in the sea, the is…
Old towns & squares
목포시
On the slopes of Yudalsan above Mokpo Port, the hill of Seosan-dong is laced with lanes and staircases too narrow for a car. Poems by residents and local poets hang on the walls, which is why it is called Sihwa ("poem and picture") Village…
Mountains & peaks
대전광역시
Rising along the southern edge of downtown Daejeon, Bomunsan is a 457.6 m city mountain and one of the Eight Views of Daejeon. Climb to the old Baekje fortress near the top and the whole city spreads out below you. Its biggest advantage is…
Gardens & parks
보성군
Rows of tea bushes climb the hillsides of Bongsan-ri in Boseong at Daehan Dawon, the largest tea plantation in Boseong and its best-known tourist estate. Past an avenue of towering cedars, whole slopes open up like green staircases, and fr…
Historic sites & memorials
보성군
In the middle of Beolgyo, a stone bridge with three rainbow-shaped arches crosses the tidal Beolgyocheon stream. This is the Beolgyo Hongyo Bridge, a Joseon-era structure listed as a Treasure and the largest surviving arch bridge of its ki…
Nature
보성군
At the edge of the fields in front of Jeonil-ri, a village in Hoecheon-myeon, Boseong, a line of centuries-old hackberry trees stands shoulder to shoulder. The Jeonil-ri Hackberry Grove is a village wood of 17 hackberries and one zelkova c…
Historic sites & memorials
서울특별시
Every year at midnight on 31 December, the bell pavilion that appears on Korean television screens is Bosingak. This two-storey pavilion stands at the main crossroads of Jongno in central Seoul, and during the Joseon dynasty its bell signa…
Churches & monasteries
보은군
Beopjusa, founded in 553 at the foot of Songnisan, is the head temple of the 5th district of the Jogye Order and home to Palsangjeon, the only wooden pagoda in Korea to survive in its historic form. With three National Treasures and more t…
Fortresses
보은군
On the slopes of Ojeongsan above the town of Boeun, Samnyeonsanseong still raises Silla stone walls that are more than 1,500 years old. Standing below them, you look up at ramparts 13 to 20 metres high and get a real sense of what a Three…
Nature
보은군
In the middle of the road to Beopjusa Temple on Songnisan, a great pine leans its branches on iron props. Jeongipumsong is famous for a legend that a Joseon king gave it the second senior rank, the grade of a government minister. Estimated…
Gardens & parks
대구
In Bongmu-dong, Dong-gu, where the road from Daegu starts to climb towards Palgongsan, Bongmu Park wraps around Dansanji, a reservoir 3.9 km in circumference. Woodland paths follow the shore, and a butterfly garden, campsite and sports gro…
Churches & monasteries
서울특별시
A short climb from the Sinchon university district towards Ansan brings you to Bongwonsa, a temple with more than a thousand years of history. It is the head temple of the Taego Order of Korean Buddhism and the guardian of Yeongsanjae, a r…
Churches & monasteries
서울특별시
Bongeunsa stands on the slopes of Sudosan in Samseong-dong, Gangnam, directly across the road from COEX. Tiled roofs and pine trees in the middle of a forest of glass towers make a striking contrast. Together with nearby Seonjeongneung, it…