Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Coast & islands
인천광역시
Just over half an hour by car from Incheon International Airport and one bridge away lies Muuido. With the wide tidal flats of Hanagae Beach, a coastal boardwalk along the sea cliffs and a footbridge to Somuuido, it is a favourite half-day…
Coast & islands
옹진군
Baengnyeongdo is South Korea's northernmost island in the Yellow Sea, so close to the North that on clear days you can see Cape Changsan in Hwanghae Province. Getting there takes about four hours by ferry from Incheon, but the reward is a…
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…
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.…
Coast & islands
부산
Spread across the very end of the Nakdong River estuary, Dadaepo Beach is Busan's classic place to watch the sun set over the sea. Fine sand carried down by the river forms a beach 900 m long and 100 m wide, and the water is so shallow tha…
Coast & islands
부산
At the southernmost tip of the Nakdong River estuary, where it meets the open sea, a small pine-covered peninsula forms Morundae. It was an island until the 16th century, when sand carried down by the river linked it to Dadaepo. The name m…
Coast & islands
부산
About 3 km west of Jagalchi Market, a sandy beach curves around a bay lined with hotels and apartment towers. Songdo Beach opened in 1913 as Korea's first beach resort and celebrated its centenary in 2013. These days more people come for t…
Coast & islands
부산
Follow the trail through the dense pine forest and, where the trees end, grey cliffs drop away tens of metres beneath your feet with waves breaking white at the bottom. Taejongdae, a low hilly headland under 200 m high at the south-eastern…
Coast & islands
부산
If you had to pick one image of Busan's coastline, it would be these rocky islets. Oryukdo is a line of small islands about 600 m off the tip of Seungdumal point in Yongho-dong, Nam District. The view is one of the city's emblems, and from…
Coast & islands
부안군
Chaeseokgang and Jeokbyeokgang are stretches of coast at Gyeokpo-ri in Buan, at the point where the Byeonsan Peninsula juts furthest into the Yellow Sea. Despite the word "gang" (river) in their names, they are sea cliffs and rocky shores.…
Coast & islands
통영시
Bijindo is an island in the Hallyeosudo waterway, a little over 40 minutes by ferry from Tongyeong, made of two islands joined by a narrow sandbar. The beach along the sandbar has fine sand on one side and smooth pebbles on the other, so f…
Coast & islands
통영시
Saryangdo belongs to Saryang-myeon in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, and is made up of two main islands that face each other about 1.5 km apart, Sangdo (Upper Island) and Hado (Lower Island), plus the smaller Suudo. For its size the…
Coast & islands
부안군
The Saemangeum Seawall is a 33.9-kilometre dyke built straight across the sea between Buan and Gunsan in North Jeolla. It is 1.4 km longer than the Afsluitdijk in the Netherlands (32.5 km), which earned it a Guinness World Record as the lo…
Coast & islands
서귀포시
The highest point on the island is barely 20 m above sea level. Wherever you stand on Gapado you can see the sea, and in spring, beyond the barley fields that cover most of the island, Sanbangsan, Songaksan and on clear days even Hallasan…
Coast & islands
서귀포시
On the coast just west of central Seogwipo, at the end of a path through pine woods, a lone pillar of rock rises out of the sea. Oedolgae means "the solitary rock", a name earned by the way it stands alone in the water. This stack, about 2…
Coast & islands
성산읍
South of Seongsan Ilchulbong, at the end of a green headland jutting into the sea, rises a red volcanic cone topped by a white lighthouse. Seopjikoji is a cape on the coast of Seongsan-eup in Seogwipo, with windswept grassland, black basal…
Coast & islands
고흥군
Across a narrow channel from Nokdong Port, at the tip of the Goheung Peninsula, lies Sorokdo. Its name means "small deer island", after the shape of its coastline. The pine forests and neat gardens look peaceful, yet for more than a centur…
Coast & islands
통영시
Out at sea 26 km south-east of Tongyeong harbour lies Somaemuldo, an island of just 0.51 km². What made it famous is its tiny neighbour, Deungdaeseom ("Lighthouse Island"). Twice a day, when the tide goes out, a 70-metre pebble causeway ap…
Coast & islands
완도군
Soando, an island in the sea south of Wando, greets arriving boats with a stone reading "Land of resistance, island of liberation". During Japanese rule it produced an unusually large number of independence activists for its size, and it i…
Coast & islands
서귀포시
Soesokkak is the mouth of the Hyodoncheon stream, which runs down the southern slopes of Hallasan and meets the sea in Hahyo-dong, Seogwipo. Just before the shore the stream widens into a deep pool framed by cliffs of solidified lava and p…
Coast & islands
신안군
Some 115 km southwest of Mokpo, Hongdo owes its name, Red Island, to the way its rocks glow at sunset. The whole island is a protected Natural Monument within Dadohaehaesang National Park, and a boat trip around its sheer cliffs and sculpt…
Coast & islands
여수시
Three small islands stand around a stretch of sea like a folding screen. The water inside is deep and calm enough for large ships, and that natural harbour drew the attention of the great powers in the 19th century. The Royal Navy called i…
Coast & islands
옹진군
Yeonpyeongdo is one of the five northwest islands of South Korea, only about 12 km from the Gangnyeong Peninsula of North Korea's Hwanghae Province. It was once a fishing island where more than 1,500 boats gathered in the croaker season an…
Coast & islands
인천광역시
Yeongjongdo is the island that holds Incheon International Airport, yet only a short way from the terminals the Yellow Sea mudflats and sandy beaches begin. It is a good escape if you have a few hours before or after a flight, or for a day…