Why Is Jeju Island, South Korea So Popular?
Jeju Island (or Jeju-do) is an oval-shaped volcanic Island 80 km from the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. It’s an unusual place with a lush natural environment, unique local culture, great food, and some of the zaniest tourist attractions you’ll find anywhere in the world.
Jeju is A Unique Destination
Jeju Island (in Korean, Jeju-do) is a fascinating and unusual place that very few Western travellers visit. It markets itself almost entirely to Asian visitors and there is very little here catering to Western tourists. Koreans love Jeju Island as a relaxing or romantic holiday destination and is sometimes referred to as South Korea’s Hawaii. Most of Jeju's millions of visitors are Chinese and Korean and tend to stick to the popular tourist sites; the famous beaches and waterfalls, and a handful of locations from popular Korean soap operas - if you put in the effort, you can find a beautiful volcanic island and explore it without the crowds.
Jeju’s Amazing volcanic Landscapes & Forests
What many people don't realize is Jeju is not just about beaches. At the heart of Jeju Island, you’ll find South Korea’s tallest mountain, Hallasan – a volcano with a crystal clear lake in its crater. The coastline is sculpted from twisted black volcanic rock and punctuated with smooth sandy beaches. Most of the island is mad up of windswept grassy hills, stone-walled farmland, and tangled rainforest. You can also explore UNESCO world heritage-listed lava tubes; visit rugged farming villages, and scramble through spectacular river valleys filled with rounded, truck-sized boulders.
Amongst the many treasures you might find are: a 900-year-old nutmeg tree in Bijarim Forest Bijarim is a rare fragment of old-growth "gotjawal" stone forest. It is dense, dark, damp, and ridiculously green. The floor of the forest is a honeycomb of volcanic rock - piled, twisted, corrugated, and pitted (in places it looks like frozen waves on the ocean), and every crevice is crammed with plant or insect life. It’s an amazing place.
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Jeju Island's Marine Environment
Jeju is located in a place where warm ocean currents from the tropical south meet cool currents from the north, resulting in a unique and prolific underwater ecosystem. Clear water makes it perfect for scuba diving, but if scuba isn’t your jam, you can always take a ride in a submarine for approximately $50. That’s right – a submarine!
“Haenyeo” - Free-Diving Grannies
Jeju has an exclusive society of middle-aged and elderly women who carry on a centuries-old tradition of free-diving in the ocean for seafood. They don’t use snorkels or oxygen tanks – they simply put on their old-fashioned rubber wet suits and masks, and they dive while holding their breath.
It’s a tradition that goes back several hundred years, and the ladies have a strong sub-culture including their own unique folk music and an exclusive and rigorously observed system of seniority. For most of the year, on many parts of Jeju’s coastline, you can watch them work from the shore.
Korean Pop-culture Tourist Cheesiness – so bad it’s good
Uncountable numbers of Korean dramas have been filmed on the island and most of the filming locations are now major tourist attractions - if that's your thing. There are also over 100 museums. Some of them are interesting and educational such as The Haenyeo Museum or the African Art Museum; others like The Trick Art Museum or Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum are just lame; while some take crappiness to a whole new level and come right out the other side into awesome! (World Teddy Bear Museum, we’re looking at you.)
It’s on a Perfect Scale for Bicycles
Jeju Island is roughly 220km in circumference, a perfectly manageable size for cycling holidays like our bicycle adventure around Jeju-do. An athletic cyclist sticking the main roads can comfortably complete a circuit of the island in a weekend, while a family with kids who are savoring the experience and exploring the back roads might spend up to two weeks. We always take our time, as we like to swim a lot, eat a lot, and explore the country lanes. On Jeju, you’re never far from a small village and homestay accommodation, so there’s no pressure to cover vast distances between food and rest.
Great Accommodation
There’s a style and price range for everyone. You can live like the locals at a minbak homestay for as little as $25 a night; find a basic but clean motel for $40 to 50; join the holidaying families from Seoul at a resort for $500 a night; or go the whole hog and rent out the most luxurious room in the swankiest resort on the island for a couple of thousand dollars – the choice is yours. You can spend the night in a replica UFO, a Buddhist temple, or a hipster capsule hotel by the sea where your room is made from a jazzed-up piece of cement drainpipe.
Local & Delicious Food
Although Jeju is a part of South Korea, it feels distinctly more relaxed and the locals speak a dialect of Korean. It’s famed for the quality of its sumo-mandarins (called Hallabong), local black-pig pork, barbecued horse meat, and fresh seafood (which you can enjoy raw or cooked). Because of the booming tourist trade, and the influx of urban refugees from Seoul, you’ll also find modern cafes and wood-fired pizza restaurants in the most unexpected places – and nearly all of them serve excellent coffee.
Jeju Island is a beautiful and strange place to visit for so many reasons. If you’re thinking about a trip, check out our Jeju Island travel guide. We packed it full of detailed information, suggestions, and advice that will save you tons of stress, time and maximize your fun so you discover the gems that are so easily missed.
