We took a day trip from Seoul to hike Seoraksan in Sokcho, South Korea.

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!

That said, this trip came from an idea another Fulbrighter had. She wanted to go hiking at Seoraksan National Park, so we got a group together to actually go to Sokcho and hike there. It was about $30 roundtrip for bus tickets (in USD), so besides food and transport to the bus station, it was a fairly inexpensive trip!

Let’s get into how our day went.

From Seoul, Sokcho is only two and a half hours by bus and a beach destination.

I started off the day at 7 AM, as I woke up early to fit in a breakfast. I ended up eating a Greek yogurt parfait, then stopped at a convenience store at my local subway stop to grab a protein shake as well. That was able to tide me over until we arrived in Sokcho, but then in Sokcho I grabbed another convenience store sandwich because I had a feeling I was going to be hungry later.

We booked our bus tickets out of Dongdo in Seoul, the almost missed our bus because we read the signs wrong. We were sprinting through the bus terminal and just made it a minute before the bus boarded, but we made it in the end. It’s a 2.5 hour bus ride with a quick stop at a rest stop, so I fell asleep for a bit of it and then enjoyed the scenery while I was awake.

I love taking the bus in Korea because of the nature you can see out of the windows. Korea is such a good spot to enjoy the natural views in general. Anyways, we arrived at Sokcho Bus Station, but because the next bus to Seoraksan was in thirty minutes, we grabbed some food to eat at the convenience store and stocked up.

From the Express Bus Terminal it’s only a thirty minute ride to Seoraksan, but it’s fairly bumpy. We were gawking at the natural views out the window as we saw the mountains come closer, and by the time we arrived, we were ready to start hiking.

Seoraksan National Park is a must-see and do if you’re into nature views and in the Sokcho area.

As soon as you enter Seoraksan National Park you can see the cable car and mountains surrounding the area. We were going to the Biryong Falls and Towangseongdae Observatory trail, which begins not too far from the main area. You have to cross a bridge to get there, but because of the lack of rain this year, the river was dried up mainly.

The beginning of the trail starts easy. There’s some scrambling up rocks leading to Biryong, but because of the rails on each side of the rocks, it’s much easier to do. I’m not used to having those in the US. But leading up to Biryong is fairly easy overall, and the falls are where most people turned around.

That hike is absolutely gorgeous, but the real challenge begins getting to Towangseongdae. There are 900 steps going straight up the mountain, and while the view in the end of was worth it, I thought that I was going to die about 600 steps in. I kept taking breaks and slowing the faster pace we were going at, but it’s the steepness that really gets to you.

The observatory is worth it though for sure. The falls were dried up due to the lack of rain when we went, which is a shame for the environment, but we spent about an hour and a half just chilling at the top, eating snacks, chatting, and looking out at the gorgeous views. It was a good time.

Going down was much quicker, and we caught the bus back before we had to head home.

An evening by the beach is the perfect way to unwind.

We didn’t get to make it to the beach before we had to go back to Seoul, but our final visit here was to a seafood restaurant. Sokcho is famous for snow crab apparently, and while I don’t eat seafood, the rest of my group enjoyed their meal.

I want to come back to Sokcho just go to to the beach and relax. I had booked a hotel for the area in November, so I’ll put an update out soon about how that trip went!

Our bus ride back was smooth. I showered and passed out hard after this trip, as I was exhausted from the day’s events. My calves were also burning for four days afterward because of the steps.

Highly recommend hiking in Seoraksan if you can handle it!

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