If you’re looking for a beautiful new city to check out in South Korea during a long weekend, I highly recommend visiting Yeosu. Yeosu is small waterfront city on the southern coast of Korea that features turquoise waters, beautiful sunsets, and offshore islands that make you feel like you’re vacationing in Thailand or the Mediterranean. There’s tons of little spots to explore and it’s a much slower pace compared to Seoul or Busan. Dusten and I visited this peaceful spot at the end of May and it was one of my favorite places we’ve visited in Korea.

Our actual itinerary strayed a bit, but below is the itinerary that I recommend using:

Day 1

Yeosu is about a 4-hour drive from Pyeongtaek, so I recommend heading out early in the morning to utilize this first full day.

Visit the Green Tea Fields. About an hour outside of Yeosu, the famous Boseong Green Tea Field is on the way if you’re driving down from Seoul or Pyeongtaek. This beautiful plantation is a very peaceful spot to enjoy for an hour or two and is well worth visiting at least once during your time in Korea. Afterwards, make sure you drive down to 초록잎이펼치는세상 cafe (A Green Leafed World) to enjoy green tea icecream with a view of another plantation and the sea.

Sunset Cable Car. After getting checked in, head back to the city center to take a glass-bottom cable car ride over the bay and enjoy the sunset.

Waterfront Dinner. The waterfront area of Yeosu is filled with lively food stands (typically seafood) as well as some cute little restaurants along the main strip. One of our favorite places we ate was Musuhui, I recommend trying the steak pasta.

Day 2

Start the Morning with a Temple Hike. We unfortunately didn’t get a chance to check out Hyangiram Buddhist temple during our visit, but it’s on my list of places to see on our next trip to Yeosu. The hike is apparently pretty steep but offers a rewarding view of the temple looking out over the turquoise blue waters.

Grab Coffee at Moifin cafe. This was one of my favorite cafes we experienced in Yeosu, and I highly recommend visiting. The drinks are a bit pricey, but this is such a stunning cafe overlooking the ocean. The landscaping here made me feel like I was in another country.

Visit the Waterfront Area or Aquarium. For your second evening, head back to the waterfront area to explore more cute cafes and restaurants, or check out the Yeosu aquarium.

Day 3

Take a Touristy Swing Photo. Start your morning out with a coffee at High Class 153 Resort Cafe. The cafe itself is a bit small, but the highlight of this spot is the large swing over the sea. If you’ve ever seen the Bali rice terrace swing photos (that all the travel bloggers used to have on Instagram), this is essentially the same thing with an ocean view. For 10k won you can even rent a flowy dress to wear for the perfect photo op.

Have a Beach Day. There are tons of cute small beach towns along the coast in Yeosu to enjoy a fun beach day. We we went to Mosageum beach, which was very cute but crowded. We decided to check out Sunbed Cafe for lunch while there, the food was great but it’s a very tiny cafe and we ended up waiting 1.5 hours for 2 sandwiches..so make sure you eat something prior!

Day 4

Spend the morning enjoying your resort before heading back!

Where to Stay

There are plenty of great hotel options in the city center which are great if you’re taking public transportation. However, if you’re driving to Yeosu, I recommend finding a waterfront airbnb or pension on one of the smaller islands. We rented an airbnb studio on Dolsando Island and the view from our airbnb was the highlight of this whole trip. It also made it such a relaxing & peaceful trip being outside of the city.

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xoxo