South coast & Busan · Busan
송정해수욕장
Busan's surf beach — gentler, younger and a long way from the Haeundae crowds.
Songjeong sits a few stops beyond Haeundae and has a completely different feel: a shallow bay with consistent, forgiving waves that made it the place Korean surfing started.
Surf schools and board hire line the road behind the sand, and the Blueline Park coastal train runs along the cliffs between here and Haeundae.
What else is here
Songjeong is the calm one: a 1.2-kilometre bay round the headland from Haeundae, with gentle, consistent waves and a surf school every thirty metres along the front.
The main reason to come
The bay picks up small, forgiving waves and the bottom is sand, which makes it the best place in Korea to stand up on a board for the first time. Schools run hourly group lessons through the summer and board hire is cheap.
The pine headland
A small wooded rock at the southern end with a pavilion on top and a path round the bottom. Ten minutes, and it gets you above the beach for the view back.
The train from Haeundae
The coastal beach train terminates here, which makes the obvious day: ride down from Haeundae, surf or swim, eat, ride back. The sky capsule runs the same route higher up.
The one Busan exception
Busan bans tents on its beaches, but Songjeong has a designated camping area set back behind the sand among the pines — the only real beach camping in the city. It is small and fills early in summer.
Cheaper than Haeundae
The seafront is lined with <em>hoetjip</em>, raw-fish restaurants, at noticeably lower prices than the equivalent four stops north.
Why it stays calm
Songjeong sits in a shallow bay partly sheltered by headlands at both ends, which knocks the power out of the swell before it arrives. For swimmers and beginner surfers that is ideal; for experienced surfers it means the good days are few and usually in autumn when a typhoon is passing well offshore.
It opens on 1 June with Haeundae and Songdo rather than waiting for July, and because it is smaller and further out it never gets the same crush.
Getting here is easiest on the beach train from Haeundae, or metro line 2 to Jangsan followed by a short bus. Either way it is under an hour from central Busan.
Haeundae Beach
The most famous beach in Korea, with a city of towers standing behind it.
Gwangalli Beach
The beach to be on after dark — Gwangan Bridge lit up across the bay.
Songdo Beach
Korea's first public beach, opened in 1913 — with a cable car over it.