Gwangan Bridge
7.4 km, lit every night
Korea's largest marine double-decker bridge, 7.42 kilometres across the bay. It is lit after dark and the colours change; the whole beachfront is essentially built to look at it.
South coast & Busan · Busan
Gwangalli Beach
광안리해수욕장
The beach to be on after dark — Gwangan Bridge lit up across the bay.
Gwangalli is Haeundae's rival and the better evening option: the whole bay faces the Gwangan Bridge, which is lit after sunset, and the sand is lined with bars and cafés looking at it.
Drone shows run over the water on many Saturday nights, and the Busan fireworks festival in autumn is staged here.
What else is here
The beach you come to after dark
Gwangalli is Haeundae's rival and its opposite: a similar length of sand, a much better night, and the Gwangan Bridge strung across the bay in front of it with its lights on.
The drone show
Saturdays, free
Around a thousand drones fly over the bay most Saturday evenings, typically at 8pm and again at 10pm, and it is free to watch from the sand. Check the schedule before travelling — it is cancelled in high wind.
Busan Fireworks Festival
Autumn, and enormous
Held over the bay, usually in late autumn, and one of the largest fireworks displays in Asia. Accommodation anywhere near the beach books out months in advance.
No tents on the sand
Busan rule, enforced
As at every Busan beach, tents and shade screens are banned on the sand. Hire a parasol from the beach operation instead.
The beachfront bars
Why people stay till 2am
The strip behind the sand is cafés, craft-beer bars and raw-fish restaurants, all of it facing the bridge. Younger and livelier than Haeundae, and open much later.
Night beach
Come at six, not at noon
- ≈1.4 km
- Sand length
- 7.42 km
- Bridge
- Sat 8pm & 10pm
- Drone show
- July–August
- Swimming
Gwangalli works in the evening in a way few beaches anywhere do. The sand is decent and the swimming is fine, but the reason two-thirds of the crowd arrives after five is the bridge: 7.42 kilometres of lit double-decker roadway curving across the mouth of the bay, with the city behind it.
Since 2022 the city has run a free drone show over the water most Saturday nights — roughly a thousand machines, twice an evening — and it has become the single most popular free thing to do in Busan. Get there an hour early for a spot on the sand.
Swimming season here is the standard July–August rather than Haeundae's June start. Metro line 2 to Gwangan station puts you a five-minute walk back from the sand.
More on the south coast & busan
Haeundae Beach
The most famous beach in Korea, with a city of towers standing behind it.
Songjeong Beach
Busan's surf beach — gentler, younger and a long way from the Haeundae crowds.
Songdo Beach
Korea's first public beach, opened in 1913 — with a cable car over it.