Year: 2019

Out of all of the places I've driven around the world, I can safely say that driving on Jeju island is among the easiest. 

The roads are well maintained, the traffic outside of the cities is minimal, the speed limits are appropriate albeit a bit slow at times, and with built-in GPS in most cars navigation is a breeze (although you'd be wise to confirm that last bit prior to renting as even Kakao Maps was fairly slow for us via our phones).

Based on this, I would highly recommend all visitors to get a car, and there really are only a few special considerations to keep in mind when visiting.

Read more

Jeju Island is often called the Hawaii of South Korea and is one of the most popular vacation spots for both visitors and locals alike.

In fact, Jeju is so popular that the flight between Seoul and the island is considered to be the busiest flight in the world with over 80,000 annual flights (that's 200+ per day) servicing over 20,000,000 annual visitors. This is a pretty insane figure, but it only really hits home when you see the departures board in the airport- almost every one of them is to Jeju!

Naturally, we had to go and hit it pretty hard during our five-day visit. While there are a lot of spots we checked out, we settled on the following as the ten best things to do in Jeju!

Read more

One of the top things to do in Jeju is most certainly hiking in Mount Hallasan National Park. 

This mountain is actually a shield volcano and is the tallest mountain in South Korea (at just under 7,000 feet), and the national park covers just about 8% of the island itself- truly making for a great space to get out and enjoy nature!

One of the most popular hikes on Mount Hallason is summiting the peak itself. But after having read about its intensity and how it often takes 8-10 hours, we decided to hit the Yeongsil Trail instead which was a much more approachable 4-5 hour hike. Coupled with peak fall colors, we made our way out to the park to enjoy Jeju's beauty.

Read more

The Seoul Lantern Festival is a colorful event that takes place in South Korea's capital during the first 17 days of November. 

While the theme of the festival changes every year, it takes place along the Cheonggyecheon Stream and features dozens upon dozens of colorful and ornate paper lanterns that really must be seen to be believed!

We were fortunate enough to end our South Korea trip in Seoul right after this one started, and wanted to share a bit more from this festival!

Read more