Jeju Island
Off the southern tip of the Korean peninsula lies Jeju, a green volcanic island that has long been the country's favorite holiday escape. Shaped entirely by old eruptions, it is a place of black lava-rock walls, tangerine groves, soft sandy beaches and the gentle bulk of Hallasan, a dormant volcano and the highest mountain in South Korea, rising at its center. Warm, slow and a world away from the bustle of Seoul, Jeju is where Koreans come to breathe out, and it makes a wonderful few days at the end of a trip.
The island's most striking landmark stands on its eastern shore: Seongsan Ilchulbong, the Sunrise Peak. It is a vast tuff cone, a crater thrown up some five thousand years ago when lava met the sea, and it rises almost straight from the water in a great bowl of green-clad rock with a wide grassy crater at its summit. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it is one of the loveliest natural sights in Korea, and its name says exactly what to do with it: climb it for the sunrise.
The walk up is short and steep, a well-built path of steps that brings you to the rim in twenty minutes or so, and from the top the island unrolls beneath you, the crater at your feet and the sea stretching away on every side. Beyond Seongsan, Jeju rewards a few unhurried days: waterfalls tumbling to the coast, the dark tunnels of the Manjanggul lava tube, the trails of Hallasan, and the haenyeo, the island's famous women free-divers who still gather seafood by hand from the cold water. We fold it all into an easy, scenic finale to a South Korea journey.
