Our favorite South Korea tours and excursions

Lying south of the mainland, Jeju Island is Korea’s favorite vacation destination, an absorbingly bucolic place with its own customs and curiosities – volcanic craters, lava tubes, and the ubiquitous “stone grandfather” statues known as hareubang. 

Many of Jeju’s foremost attractions are located on its south coast, including charming Seogwipo city, the basalt columns of Jusangjeolli (Korea’s very own Giant’s Causeway), and a series of pristine beaches. There’s no more captivating way to see them than from the vantage point of a yacht, out on the turquoise sea, with the extinct volcano of Hallasan – South Korea’s highest mountain – looming in the background, like a two-kilometer-high movie prop. 

Yachts depart from Seogwipo’s picturesque little harbor, and free fruit, beer and wine are included during your trip – a luxuriant way to enjoy the scenery of southern Jeju.

Few countries allow you to experience their traditional culture even while fast asleep! Don’t miss the chance to stay the old-school Korean way, in one of its hanok guesthouses. 

Wooden, tile-roofed and intrinsically East Asian, courtyard homes known as hanok once covered the country, though they’re now vanishingly rare – the vast majority of Koreans now live in apartment blocks. Thankfully, a few hanok neighborhoods remain, including the Hanok Village in Jeonju, and Hahoe Village, near Andong. The good news for visitors is that all of them have plenty of hanok guesthouses, where you can savor the homely delights of a near-bygone era. This usually extends to sleeping on futon-style bedding (the floors are heated through winter) and eating traditional breakfasts. In Jeonju Hanok Village there’s the added bonus of having some of Korea’s best restaurants on your doorstep, while in Hahoe, you’ll wake up in the calm of the Korean countryside.

Hundreds of wooden buildings once home to royals, with a wall of mountains in the background: the palace of Gyeongbokgung is a fantastic selfie spot. But why not go the whole hog and dress up in some traditional silken clothing for your photos? 

Until recently, hanbok was seen as rather simple when compared to other types of traditional East Asian clothing; neither the fit nor the colors had the beauty of a Vietnamese ao dai or a Japanese kimono. However, Korean designers began to tweak the styles to make them more appealing to modern tastes; nowadays you can’t walk around a Seoul palace without seeing visitors wearing rental versions of these prettier new forms. While more popular with female visitors, there’s plenty of choice for men too, including some terrific hats. 

Your two-hour hanbok experience includes dress-up, basic hairstyling, and an English-speaking photographer who’ll pop well over a hundred shots. Just note that Koreans tend to say “kimchi!” instead of “cheese!”

Korea has more Buddhist temples than you could count in several reincarnated lifetimes –staying at one offers the chance to experience a way of life virtually unchanged in centuries. 

Our temple stay takes place at one of Korea’s more unusual places of worship. Tucked within the forests and fields of the Gyeongsang countryside, Golgulsa is a real stunner, but bizarrely, the monks here mix meditation with martial arts. Don’t expect too many taekwondo kicks, though – sunmudo is a Zen-based martial art form quite in keeping with Buddhist practice. 

Temple stay programs tend to run to a strict schedule; experiencing the life of a monk, if only for a short while, is the whole point. On day one, you’ll don temple robes and get through some meditation and sunmudo practice before a vegetarian Buddhist dinner. It's early to bed, and early to rise; the next day starts at 5am! After some chanting, meditation and breakfast, there’s time for a tea ceremony and more sunmudo before checking out.

The Demilitarized Zone – or DMZ – is a four-kilometer-wide buffer zone between North and South Korea. There’s palpable tension in the air between these razor-wired borders; created by mutual agreement at the end of the Korean War in 1953, it was dubbed the “scariest place on Earth” by Bill Clinton. 

The DMZ stretches clean across the Korean peninsula, though its focal point is undoubtedly the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom. Here, soldiers from North and South Korea eyeball each other at scarily close range; and if you’re in luck, you may have a chance to step across the border into one of the huts that the two sides use for negotiations. 

On our guided DMZ tours, you’ll also see a mountain observatory, where you can peer through binoculars at the “propaganda village” of Kijong-dong; and tunnels secretly made by North Korea, apparently for a surprise attack on Seoul. Got questions? Rest assured your guide will be able to fill you in on all things DMZ.