Korea’s Secret Retreat

It isn’t an international ‘mecca’ for tourists, in fact it is barely known. Nevertheless it has been the tourist destination at one end of the busiest air route in the world.

While little known outside of Korea where it has been revered for decades as a honeymoon destination, long before most Koreans had enough money to become tourists.

Jeju island and province is a one-hour flight from Seoul-Inchon, the second largest city in the world. At 80 km. off the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, it is a four-hour ferry ride to the volcanic Mt. Halla-dominated-island. Now it is effectively the weekend retreat for residents of the big metropolis.

North side of Mt. Halla and house construction 1970. This is before the trees and forests had regenerated.

At almost 2000 m. (6000 ft.) high, ‘Halla-san’, as it is known, is the highest mountain in South Korea. A volcanic eruption on the ocean floor created the island about two million years ago and the mountain itself 100,000 years ago.

Mt. Halla from the south side city of Soegipo 2015

As a wide-eyed 24-year-old travelling student in 1970, Koreans I met, recommended I go there. I took the 100km.-plus-flight from Pusan to the island. I returned again in 2015 as a grandfather and father of the groom.