Jeju
Jeju is a shield volcano with Korea's highest peak at its centre and a UNESCO-listed lava tube system beneath it, and its haenyeo — women who free-dive for shellfish into their seventies — have worked these waters for centuries. Walk a section of the Olle trail around the coast, and eat what the divers bring up, plainly grilled, at a harbour shack.
Why go
A volcanic island with a UNESCO lava tube system — Manjanggul is nine kilometres long. Haenyeo — women who free-dive for shellfish into their seventies, and have for centuries. Hallasan — South Korea's highest mountain, 1,947 metres, climbable in a day. The Olle trails — 27 routes totalling over 400 kilometres around the coast and interior.
The character
Jeju is a shield volcano in the strait between Korea and Japan, with Hallasan at its centre and 360 parasitic cones scattered across it. The lava tubes beneath — Geomunoreum's system, including the nine-kilometre Manjanggul — are among the finest anywhere and part of the island's UNESCO listing. Basalt is everywhere: in the drystone walls dividing the fields, in the harubang statues at village gates, in the black beaches.
The haenyeo are the human equivalent. For centuries women here have dived without air for abalone, conch and seaweed, working into their seventies and eighties in a matriarchal economy where the divers were the households' main earners. Their number has fallen from twenty-six thousand in the 1960s to a few thousand, most over sixty, and UNESCO listed the culture in 2016. Jeju also carries a harder history: the 1948 uprising and its suppression killed perhaps thirty thousand islanders, a subject silenced for fifty years and now addressed at a memorial park.
Places of character
Manjanggul lava tube — a kilometre of the nine is open; cold, dark and geologically astonishing. Seongsan Ilchulbong — a tuff cone rising from the sea at the eastern tip, climbed for sunrise. Hallasan — the Seongpanak or Gwaneumsa trails to the crater lake; a full and demanding day. Haenyeo Museum and a diving demonstration — at Hado or Seongsan, where divers still work. Olle Trail 7 — the coastal route from Oedolgae, generally considered the finest of the twenty-seven. Jeju 4.3 Peace Park — the memorial to the 1948 uprising and massacre.
The way to do it
Hire a car; the island is 73 kilometres across and the bus network is slow. Climb Hallasan on a clear day and start early — the summit closes to ascents by midday. Walk at least one Olle route. Eat black pork and the sea urchin soup, and buy from a haenyeo cooperative if you can.
One perfect day
Seongsan Ilchulbong before dawn, up the tuff cone for sunrise out of the strait. Breakfast of abalone porridge. Mid-morning at Manjanggul, walking a kilometre into a lava tube at ten degrees. Lunch of black pork. Afternoon on Olle Trail 7 along the southern coast — basalt, sea cliffs, and a stone wall the whole way. Watch haenyeo come ashore at a village harbour with their nets in late afternoon. Dinner of grilled fish, and a soak in a hot spring with Hallasan somewhere in the cloud behind.
Grand hotels
Podo Hotel — Itami Jun's 2001 building shaped like a bunch of grapes, in the island's midlands. Grand Hyatt Jeju — the modern tower on the north coast, for the city end of the island.
When to go
Best expression: April and May — camellias and rape flowers, mild for hiking, before the rains. Consider: October and November, clear and dry with autumn colour on Hallasan. Avoid if possible: the June to July monsoon, and August typhoons.
The frame
Ideal stay 4 nights · Minimum 3 nights · Best arrival by air; Seoul–Jeju is among the world's busiest routes · Airport CJU, 5 km · Walkability the trails; the island needs a car · Best without a car no