Sokcho

Five minutes on the cable car from the park entrance puts you below Gwongeumseong. Ten more on foot takes you onto the rock itself. The top is bare granite with nothing to hold, so worn soles are a real risk. Strong wind stops the cable car altogether.

Four hours there and back from the park entrance, past the rocking boulder on the way. The last stretch is 808 steel steps, narrow enough that everybody stops each time two people meet.

The seated bronze Buddha at the park gate stands over fourteen metres and shows up even from the cable-car platform, while the temple behind it sits at the head of the trails, so anyone walking into the mountains passes it anyway.

The walk to Biryong Falls follows the valley floor and needs nothing more than trainers. From there to the Towangseong viewpoint is over nine hundred steps in one unbroken run. Budget an extra hour for that stretch alone.

The gaetbae between Cheongho-dong and the town has no engine: passengers haul on a cable with hooks to pull it across. The channel is narrow enough that the crossing takes a minute. You pay in cash on board.

For raw fish you go down to the basement, while dried fish and salted seafood stay on the floor above. There is always a queue at the fried chicken counters, but nearly everyone is taking it away, so it moves faster than it looks.

The army fenced off this shoreline for decades; it opened as a walking route in 2018. A boardwalk 1.7 kilometres long follows the rock face, starting at the southern end of Sokcho beach.

The name comes from the idea that surf breaking on these rocks sounds like a geomungo zither. A short bridge runs out to the pavilion itself, and the lighthouse viewpoint on the next rise is a further climb up steps.

A line of fryers works inside the harbour, handing over prawns and squid in paper bags to eat standing up. At weekends the queue for the car park starts out on the approach road. On those days the bus from town is quicker.

Eight kilometres around: two hours walking, forty minutes on a bicycle. A floating bridge went in across the middle in 2022, so you can now cut straight over the water on foot.

Daecheongbong, Seoraksan's 1,708m summit, is closest from Osaek in Yangyang, though that route is steep stairs throughout. Allow about four hours for the ascent alone. Rangers refuse entry after the cut-off hour, and trails shut on some wildfire-season days.

A seaside temple about 30 minutes' drive from Sokcho, mostly burned in the 2005 wildfire and rebuilt. See the Uisangdae pavilion on the clifftop and Hongnyeonam hermitage perched over a sea cave. A hole in Hongnyeonam's floor shows the surf churning beneath.

Deep in inner Seorak, reached by shuttle bus from the Yongdae-ri car park, about 15 minutes up a narrow valley road. Han Yong-un lived and wrote here, and the room ex-president Chun Doo-hwan used for two-odd years from 1988 is kept. Cairns crowd the stream.

Some 40 minutes south of Sokcho, surf shops line the sand one after another. In summer the water fills with lessons, while the bigger swells actually arrive in autumn and winter. Climb to the Jukdojeong pavilion on the headland to watch surfers below.

A hot springs village in Nohak-dong, on the road from Sokcho towards Seoraksan. Hikers drop in to soak tired legs after coming off the mountain, and one or two places run an open-air foot bath. Seorak-dong lodgings are barely 10 minutes away by road.