Marine park · North Jeolla
변산반도국립공원
The only park that pairs mountains with a west-coast shoreline.
Byeonsanbando is split in two: an inland half of low wooded hills and waterfalls, and an outer half of sea cliffs and tidal flats on the Yellow Sea.
Naesosa, approached under an avenue of fir trees, is the temple to see, and Jikso waterfall is the walk most people do.
Door-to-door estimates for a normal day; they stretch on a holiday weekend. Check the timetable before you rely on a last bus back.
Bus
Express coach from Seoul Central City to Buan, about 3h, then a local bus to Naesosa or the coast.
Train
KTX to Jeongeup, then a bus west to Buan — about the same total time.
Car
Around three hours. The coastal road round the peninsula is the point of driving here.
The tidal flats and the Gyehwado area draw large numbers of migrating waders. Otters use the streams inland, and the woods hold roe deer and boar.
The fir avenue at Naesosa is the best-known planting, around 600m of trees. Inland, old broadleaf forest; on the coast, salt-tolerant scrub and pine.
Korea’s wildlife is shy and mostly nocturnal — you’re far more likely to see tracks than animals. Wild boar are the one to know about: keep your distance, don’t run, and never get between a sow and her young.
What grows and lives here
Byeonsanbando is the only national park in Korea with both a mountain interior and a sea coast inside the same boundary. Locals split it in two: Naebyeonsan, the inner hills with their waterfalls and temple, and Oebyeonsan, the outer coast of cliffs and beaches.
Chaeseokgang — rock stacked like books
Oebyeonsan coast
Photo by Jjw, CC BY-SA 4.0
Gyeokpo beach, beside the cliffs
Byeonsanbando
Photo by Jjw, CC BY-SA 4.0
The avenue up to Naesosa
Naebyeonsan
Photo by Byungjoon Kim, CC BY 2.0
The thousand-year zelkova at Naesosa
Naebyeonsan
Photo by Byungjoon Kim, CC BY 2.0
Naesosa's one-pillar gate
Naebyeonsan
Photo by Byungjoon Kim, CC BY 2.0
Cheonwangmun, the gate of the heavenly kings
Naebyeonsan
Photo by Byungjoon Kim, CC BY 2.0
The shore platform under the Chaeseokgang cliffs is only walkable around low water, and the sea comes back in faster than people expect along a flat rock shelf. Check the tide table for Gyeokpo before you go — there is no view at all at high tide and there is real danger in being caught out on the platform.
Walking it
Treat this as two parks. Naebyeonsan is a proper little mountain area with a waterfall and a great temple; Oebyeonsan is a coastline. Doing one of each makes an excellent two days.
The best walk in the inner park
Route: Naebyeonsan ranger station → Jikso falls → Bongnaegugok valley
Getting to the start: Bus from Buan town to the Naebyeonsan entrance.
A gentle valley path to a waterfall dropping into a green pool, with a viewing platform above it. Easily the most photographed spot inland, and it is nearly flat.
Temple, no climbing
Route: Car park → the fir and maple avenue → Naesosa
Getting to the start: Bus from Buan to Naesosa.
Founded in 633. The approach avenue is the thing — six hundred metres of fir and maple — and in the courtyard stands a zelkova said to be around a thousand years old. The main hall's latticed doors, carved with flowers and left unpainted, are famous in their own right.
The inner summit
Route: Naesosa → Gwanumbong (433m) → Sesuldae → back
Getting to the start: From behind Naesosa.
Modest heights but a genuine rocky ridge, and from the top you can see the whole peninsula with the sea on three sides. Best done as a loop from the temple.
The coast
Route: Gyeokpo → the shore platform below the cliffs → back
Getting to the start: Bus from Buan to Gyeokpo.
Walk out on the wave-cut platform beneath the layered cliffs. Only possible around low water — check the tide first. Sunset here is the reason many people come.
Given by walking time; the Jikso route is signed from the Naebyeonsan ranger station.
Both at once
Byeonsanbando occupies a square peninsula sticking out of Korea's west coast into the Yellow Sea, and it is the only national park in the country that protects a mountain range and a coastline together. The division is old and still used: Naebyeonsan for the hills inside, Oebyeonsan for the shore around the outside.
The inner half is small-scale and green — Uisangbong at 509m is the high point, which by Korean national park standards is barely a hill — with the Bongnaegugok valley, the Jikso waterfall and Naesosa, a temple founded in 633 whose carved lattice doors are among the most admired pieces of woodwork in Korean Buddhism.
The outer half is the reason most people come. Chaeseokgang is a sea cliff of sedimentary rock laid down in horizontal beds and then cut back by the waves, so the face reads as hundreds of thousands of stacked books. At low tide you can walk out onto the platform at its foot; at high tide it is underwater.
The west coast has enormous tidal ranges, and that shapes everything here — the mudflats, the fishing, the salt farms inland, and the fact that half the park's best sights have opening hours set by the moon.
Chiaksan
Steep, quiet and hard work — a hiker's mountain near Wonju.
Dadohaehaesang
The largest national park in Korea — an archipelago of hundreds of islands.
Deogyusan
A long, gentle ridge at 1,600m — and the easiest big summit in the country.