OFF MAP KOREA-Outdoor Activity Information in Korea

Is Eoryongdo the most overlooked island hike in all of Wando County? I think it might be. Wando County gets occasional attention for its purple-themed Banwol-Bidan islands or the salt flats of Jeungdo, but Eoryongdo sits further out in the archipelago, past the point where most travellers — Korean or foreign — bother to continue. The island has a permanent population of well under a hundred people, no guesthouses marketed to outsiders in any language other than Korean, and a coastline that folds into dolerite sea cliffs dramatic enough to make you question why you spent three nights in Seoraksan instead. I drove a pair of clients there last autumn — a retired couple from the Netherlands who had already done Jirisan Dulle-gil and Wolchulsan with us — and the look on their faces when the second ferry rounded the headland and Eoryongdo came into view was worth every minute of the four-hour drive from Seoul. Where exactly is Eoryongdo, and why is it so hard to reach? Eoryongdo is a...

Why Yokji-do Stopped Me in My Tracks 🚐 Want to walk this trail with a private driver? Off Map Korea drives small groups (2-6) to Korea's hidden paths. From ₩280,000/day · See packages → I've dropped clients at a lot of South Sea ferry terminals over the years — Wando, Nokdong, Samcheonpo — and most of the time the conversation on the drive down is about what to expect. The first time I drove a pair of Irish walkers to Tongyeong for Yokji-do, I honestly undersold it. I told them it was 'a quiet island with decent ridge views.' They came back to the car that evening shaking their heads. 'That cliff path,' one of them said, 'is the best thing we've done in Korea.' I've since taken many more groups there, and the reaction is almost always the same. Yokji-do (욕지도) is not famous on the international hiking circuit. That's exactly why it belongs on this blog. Getting to Yokji-do: The Tongyeong Ferry Yokji-do sits roughly 32 k...