I visited Jeju with Daria, a fellow CIS abroad member! I want to give her flowers for mapping out the itinerary, plane tickets, and organizing a plethora of additional activities to do in case we wanted to deviate from the pre-planned itinerary. Genuinely helped make the trip much easier and more fun, also giving some whimsey. She was quite the motivated individual, which came handy when we got rained on during day 4 when all I wanted to do was stay in bed haha. Thanks to her, though, we went out and witnessed some great sights! Thanks Daria!! <3
Without further ado, here is our Jeju trip!!
My personal recommendations included but overall, absolutely do make the trip to Jeju!! It is so worth it, seeing the views and having a different vibe really completes the Korean experience.
We checked in the night before with the Winseutori Hotel, which had amazing beds, with daily towels and much needed water bottles. Though, in our experience, it was hard to communicate with the staff since they spoke little to no English, where we had to call in a friend to speak on our behalf to communicate that we would be late to our check in time over the phone. Papago is a much-needed app to get around Jeju. Though the following are the sights we went to!
We walked 30 minutes from the hotel to this waterfall, and along the way it had gorgeous views, and I was happy to hear the birds' calls. The waterfall itself was pretty with different opportunities to see other structures. In my opinion, since it’s relatively close to the hotel, it’s worth making the trek but if you were to find other activities you could live without it.
This was a fun experience, though I wish we could have gone deeper haha. This was one of those things we discovered along the way and did on a whim. I think my favorite fish was the worker who kept giving us hearts through the glass. It was cool to witness ship wreckage, and the workers gave us a lot of time to appreciate the sights of seeing fishes in their own habitat. This is another, it would be nice but not a totally necessary activity you could do on Jeju.
Saeseom Island Saeyeongyo Bridge
The bridge view was amazing, but I think the true showstopper is when it is at night where it almost seemingly comes to life. Since we were at the bridge, due to the submarine experience, we decided to go at midday. If I were to redo the experience, I would plan for sunset or onward, just for the fact to see it lit up and the firework show they have!
Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market
After eating, we decided to head to the Olle Market. There are a lot of food stalls selling fish and oranges, which is Jeju’s specialty! On the one hand, I wanted to try and eat a meal there but on the other hand, it was so huge that it would have been overwhelming, especially since I was starving at this point. The market as well has many variations of souvenirs that is hard to come across again, or for as cheap, so I really recommend getting souvenirs here – I mourn the loss of not getting Punch’s mom in a Jeju themed outfit with an orange hat keychain.
Cost: 17-24 years of age: 1,000 KRW
You absolutely need to go to this waterfall, as you can dip your toes in the water, and the views were absolutely gorgeous. 100% Recommend and loved every second of it. Make sure you bring some sort of ID that has your birthday and give it to the ticket lady so you can get the 1k discount!
Another must see that no photos give justice to. It was an absolute amazing sight, and we had so much fun posing with the fake hanbok that was worn by a famous actor in a k-drama. 100% Recommend, it blew me away. Also, we couldn’t find the beach/lagoon area where you could swim and Google maps, KakaoMaps, nor Naver does not work so definitely ask a local or tour guide for help.
It’s a themed cafe where during the months of October-December you could pick oranges. We had to skip this activity due to Daepo Jusangjeolli closing at 5pm, but God, I wish to come back and pick oranges. This is a fun cafe since it's so cute and made for photos so if I were to redo my trip, I would do this while on the way to the next locations.
2,000 KRW (25+)
It was a nice cliff. Though I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as I could have because I was starving. Luckily, they have a shop selling chicken skewers outside of it with a cute little cafe cat.
This was a fun beach with some soft, warm sand and a lot of seashells along the shore. Daria became an expert at finding the biggest and coolest looking seashells! The water was too cold for me to enjoy but Daria had a blast swimming. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed walking up and down the beach. 100% recommend, though there are a ton of gnats.
Right at the entrance, the cliff was a little pricey restaurant that seemingly appears a lot in K-TV, but the main reason I include this restaurant is that they hire performers to entertain, as well as the beach view!!
We then traveled to our other hotel, Ocean Grand, and the service was better but still lacked English speaking employees. Papago to the rescue once more. Their beds were not as good as the other hotel. Their bathroom layout was not great either since there was no divider for the shower, causing the whole bathroom floor to be wet. However, being able to see the beach and walking distance to all of the different pop-up shops and stores all made up for it. We spent the whole day swimming along the beach.
Final day with lots and lots of rain.
This is another sight I would recommend seeing at least once, because the atmosphere was so grand that the pictures fail to capture or do justice to. 100% Recommend, felt like exploring Minecraft's new caves.
Navigated to the Seongsanpo Port terminal, and you MUST Bring your passport to visit Udo Island. (I forgot mine and had to go back to the hotel much to Daria’s displeasure). I’m not sure how to get to the correct port but try to go to the Udo Cheonjin Hang Port. Though if you land in Haumokdong Port like we did, there was a bus tour that helps you travel to the 6 main attractions of Udo! We did that and it saved the trip since there were no taxis and it was raining. Though my favorite had to be Geommeolle Beach. Leave some room for exploring that area and if I could redo the trip, do this experience first rather than the Manjangul cave so we could have a shot of going on a boat and viewing Dongangyeonggul Cave. I also wanted to try Daria’s pick for Sanho Chinese Restaurant or UDOJJAJANGMAN, but they both were closing when we arrived 🙁. The last boat back to mainland leaves at 6:30 PM, so be aware of the timing!
Overall, save yourself the trouble and order taxis for long distances, as the buses are very infrequent and walking is a bit harder since the island does not always have stoplights, and the sidewalks sometimes don’t fully exist. Taxis are cheaper than in Seoul so don’t worry about that, but I recommend using Kakao’s Taxi rather than K.Ride (foreigner ver) since it was cheaper. I loved the South side myself, as the views were amazing. Go with friends and enjoy yourself; this is definitely an island worth visiting!
Semester in Seoul, Sogang University.
