We have been the last 4 days in Jeju island, which is considered one of the new 7 wonders of nature! It contains the natural World Heritage Site Jeju volcanic island and lava tubes, the tallest mountain of south Korea with 1950 m above the sea level, it has the biggest Korean tea production, a unique cuisine and it is very famous for the Haenyeo (female deep-sea divers) who are women aged 60 and over and go without extra oxygen deep diving to catch seafood!
Moreover it has many beautiful waterfalls, coral and beautiful beaches with pristine water.
1. The north beaches: Gwakji Beach and Hyeopjae Beach
2. Osulloc Tea Plantation (Museum) 3. A short hike at Gerum Oreum to enjoy a nice view 4.Cheonjiyeon Waterfalls
5. Basalt columns at Jusangjeollidae
6. Yakcheonsa Temple
7. Hwanguji Natural Pools
8. Jeongbang Waterfall and Sojeongbang waterfall
9. Jeju Folk Villages
10. Gwangchigi Beach
11. Seongsan Ilchulbong
12. Haenyeo Museum
13. Visit a local pottery manufacturer
14. Visit Manjanggul Lava Tube, with the biggest lava column in the world
15. Do a hike at Jirisan, the tallest mountain of South Korea
Jeju island 4 days 3 nights itinerary, South Korea
We would recommend you renting a car for 4 days and going around the island. Below we've prepared you a list of the best things we would recommend to do at Jeju in a temporal order if you would do a loop starting from Jeju city going to the west and finally arriving on the last day from the east of the city.
1. The north beaches: Gwakji Beach and Hyeopjae Beach
Both beaches at the north are very beautiful with white sand and turquoise water. Moreover, there are several of the famous Jeju sculptures and you can be very creative with the pictures with such a scenery. The coastline is full of palm trees as well so we would definitely recommend visiting that.
2. Osulloc Tea Plantation (Museum)
The most famous south Korean tea is actually the Jeju tea. And this is the biggest plantation of Jeju. The Osulloc Tea Museum is not really a museum but a shop and a plantation in which you can also see how the tea is prepared and put into tea bags. It's a very beautiful building and an interesting place to see if you're into tea. Moreover, the tea ice cream is very popular! We were invited to a tea via the button at our website and we bought a green tea and enjoyed it as you can see in this link. Thanks for contributing!
3. A short hike at Gerum Oreum to enjoy a nice view
This is a short hike of about 40 min going up and down but you have a nice view of the island and a view to the highest peak of Jeju.
4.Cheonjiyeon Waterfalls
This itinerary is very beautiful, with 2 / 3 different waterfalls. One of them is only flowing with water when it has rained heavily in the previous days. But it's still beautiful even without water since it has the typical basalt volcanic structure as you can see in the pictures below. Moreover, you also get to see a small temple and a beautiful bridge that connects the temple with the waterfalls path.
5. Basalt columns at Jusangjeollidae
The most famous basalt columns are not the ones of the previous waterfalls but the ones at Jusangjeollidae, which have many different basalt formations similar to the ones you can observe in Iceland or North Ireland.
6. Yakcheonsa Temple
We would definetely recommend visiting the biggest temple of Jeju, which has been one of the biggest temples we have seen during our trip, including the ones in Japan. It's very beautiful outside and inside with a huge Buddha statue and many different sculptures and different colors. From the top of the temple you can also see the sea!
7. Hwanguji Natural Pools
These natural pools are very close to the basalt columns and we would definetely recommend stopping by to see such beautiful contrast of rocks and clear water!
8. Jeongbang Waterfall and Sojeongbang waterfall
40 minutes to the east from the previous place by car you have two spectacular waterfalls, one being called "the small one", which is free and easy to access and the other one for which you have to pay a small entry fee of about 3€ per person. But it's worth visiting it because apart from the waterfalls you get to see some Haenyeos selling freshly caught shellfish!
9. Gwangchigi Beach
This beach is very close to the famous Seongsan and it's great to take pictures with it on the background. Moreover, during low tide you can actually see it on the reflection of the water!
11. Seongsan Ilchulbong
This place is one of the most famous of Jeju island, since it's a beautiful crater with plants on top of it that is directly entering the sea as you can see in the youtube video on our channel at the beginning of this post!
12. Haenyeo Museum
Directly at the bottom of the previous crater you can see some Haenyeos selling shellfish as well. Moreover, during the day, if the weather is good, you can even see a live performance of these brave women, while catching the shellfish directly from the sea using only their lungs!
13. Visit a local pottery manufacturer
As you know, we're into pottery and we like to have this as a common hobby. At Jeju, there are two places where pottery is produced and in that one we happened to find a couple that is mixing pottery and baking. In fact, the man is the artist and the woman is German and is baking a really good bread. Germany is very good with bread and she is doing a very nice job to have good quality bread. Moreover they have two golden retrievers, which are one of our favorite dog breeds and we used to have one together named Sammy. It reminded us of one possible way in which we would spend our lives having the combination of a golden retriever, a pottery shop and a bakery!
14. Visit Manjanggul Lava Tube, with the biggest lava column in the world
This lava tube is amazing! It's just huge and you can just visit it by yourself when buying a ticket. It takes about 1h to go to the end of the tube and back and at the end of the tube you can see the biggest lava column in the world. It's one of the world heritages of Jeju and we would say it's worth visiting it because you see something very different than the rest of the island.
15. Visit the Jeju Folk Villages
If you have time and it's not raining we would also recommend visiting the traditional Jeju folk villages.
16. Do a hike at Jirisan, the tallest mountain of South Korea
During summer it's also great to take the chance to hike at Jirisan, which is the tallest mountain of South Korea ^^
We hoped you liked this post! Let us know what you think about it and what parts of Jeju you would like to visit the most. Have you seen any other parts that you would recommend visiting?