I spent a day touring Pocheon, South Korea at the Art Valley and lakes.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job as a Fulbrighter, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

So I mentioned the new job, which is actually moving to South Korea on a Fulbright award. I’m doing documentary poetry work here in Korea for the next ten months (at the time of typing this), which means beyond my working hours I’m going to try and travel around the country!

Some places though I didn’t want to rent a car to go to, so I ended up looking at Klook tours. I did the math and sometimes the tour is just the same price as if I did it myself, so it’s worth it at the end of the day. On this day specifically I booked a tour for Pocheon Art Valley, Jaein Falls, and Sanjeong Lake.

These are all near the border of North Korea, and while you could take public transport to these places, I think that it’s easier to just book a tour if you don’t want to drive. I paid 58 USD for the tour, which lasted from 8 AM to 8 PM because of traffic, and I only had to pay an additional 20,000 won for my lunch.

That said, let’s get into how this day went!

Jaein Falls has a fascinating story behind it, but the autumn flower fields were the highlight.

I boarded my tour bus at 8 AM, at Hongdae, and then we stopped in Myeongdong to pick up the rest of the group. This tour included about 30 people from all around the world, but very few were solo travelers. If you’re looking to make friends on a Klook tour, these kinds of tours are not the place to do that (although I did make a friend on this tour).

It took about an hour to get to our first stop, which was Jaein Falls. Something I love about bus rides in Korea is how scenic the countryside is, and the Pocheon countryside was gorgeous to see out the window. We did a quick bathroom stop at the beginning, then wandered towards the falls.

Because of the environment and lack of rain this year, the river was a bit dried up surrounding the region. You could see the tires from a factory accident years ago, which are usually submerged, and this meant that the falls themselves were a bit smaller.

It’s a small ten minute trek to Jaein, then you have to go down a bunch of steps if you want to get a bit closer. Unlike the falls in Jeju, you cannot get close to Jaein, but you can take some solid pictures from the observatory. Our guide told us that the falls is named after a performer who was killed there after an official wanted his wife, then the wife bit off the nose of the official (who died because of it) and then killed herself at the falls.

I grabbed a cherry ade from one of the nearby stands then spent the rest of our time wandering around the flower fields. There were really big and pretty clusters of orange flowers throughout the fields, and I had a fun time photographing them.

Unless you’re in the area, I don’t know if I would recommend going to Jaein—although I enjoyed the experience! We boarded the bus after this and went another hour to our next stop: Sanjeong Lake.

Sanjeong Lake is a beautiful spot to relax, eat, and enjoy the local scenery.

Our next stop was Sanjeong Lake, which was an hour from Jaein Falls. Because this was the weekend of Hangul Day, there were a ton of people coming up to sit by the water, hike, enjoy rice wine (makgeolli), or at the nearby cafes. We had a little over two hours here at Sanjeong, but I went with some of the other solo travelers to eat a restaurant.

Our guide told us that the area was famous for its vegetables, so we went to a spot that had a lot of veggie options. One of the other girls and I split a bulgogi jeongol, and I ordered a bottle of Pocheon makgeolli. The bulgogi, with the banchan, was a huge portion compared to Seoul so I was surprised at how full I was by it.

The makgeolli was also really good. My guide explain it as the area being famous for makgeolli due to the quality of the rice grown around here, and I could taste how decent it was. I enjoyed that a lot, and for 20,000 won it felt like a steal.

After that I walked with my new friend about halfway around the lake. You could easily spend 2-3 hours walking around, eating, and enjoying the lake, but we had to come back before the bus left in order to make sure we had time to get on and maybe go to the bathroom.

I enjoyed the views a lot and snapped quite a few pictures here. It’s very much out of the way and local, so people were surprised to see all of the foreigners gathering around here and enjoying the sights just like them.

After this we headed to our last destination, which, in theory, should take 15 minutes to get to but was almost an hour because of the holiday.

Pocheon Art Valley is stunning to see in person, but definitely not a must-do for a Seoul itinerary.

Our final stop for the day was the Pocheon Art Valley. We didn’t see the Herb Garden nearby with the pink muhly grass, but the highlight of this section are the gardens and the natural lake that was formed throughout the years.

If you don’t take the monorail it’s a steep hike up the mountain, but it only took about ten minutes with some breaks. I thought that it was fine if you stopped to catch your breath, and we were able to see the top gardens before heading over to the small lake.

That’s the main attraction, as several Korean dramas were actually filmed here. It’s pretty to see in person, that’s for sure! I’m glad I saw it on this trip, as I don’t know if I’ll make it back to Pocheon any time soon.

Besides this there’s a small convenience store with drinks and ice creams. I got the sense this was a place where you just wander, sit, and vibe, then maybe head to a nearby restaurant once you or your family got hungry. We had a little over an hour here, and while I wish we had a tiny bit more time, as there was a small section we missed, I think not spending a huge amount of time at the Art Valley works well.

There just isn’t a ton to see here. I almost bought some more local makgeolli at the shop they have next to the parking lot, but decided against it. Then we boarded the bus, where the time to get back to Seoul doubled because of the insane amount of traffic.

I then hosted a dinner party once I got home for a friend, and that’s how I ended my day! It was a fun adventure, but I wouldn’t recommend this tour if you’re in Seoul for a short amount of time and if it’s your first time. If you’re here for a longer stay and/or been to Korea several times, then this might be worth checking out!

Follow me below on Instagram, Goodreads, and Letterboxd for more.