Six Days, Two Coasts: A Jeju Itinerary by Rental Car - Example Timeline | Boromlia
A Jeju itinerary for six days in June 2026 by rental car, built around a Hallasan permit and a lava tube that had just reopened.
Nine in the Morning on the First of the Month
Hallasan summit permits are released at 09:00 Korean time on the first of each month, for the whole of the following month, through the park's own booking site at visithalla.jeju.go.kr. Only two of the seven trails reach Baengnokdam, the crater lake at the top, and both of them need a permit. We had no Korean phone number, so we used the email verification option. The confirmation went into spam. By the time I found it and finished the booking it was 09:14, the Sunday slots for Seongpanak had gone, and that is why we climbed on a Monday.
The Other Permit, the Driving One
Renting a car on Jeju needs an International Driving Permit alongside your home licence, and the hire desks check. Ours took ten minutes at a post office. Booking the car took considerably longer.
Ganjang Gejang at Dongmun Market
Dongmun Traditional Market in Jeju City runs a night market that gets going around 18:00. We ate ganjang gejang, raw crab cured in soy sauce, from a stall with plastic stools, and bought a bag of tangerines from the woman next door who put two extra in without being asked. I did not write down what any of it cost and the receipts went into a bin at the airport, so I cannot tell you. Somewhere between cheap and very cheap.
Landing at Jeju International, Then Discovering Google Maps Will Not Drive
Jeju International sits inside Jeju City, so you are on a road within about fifteen minutes of the baggage carousel. What nobody had told us is that Google Maps gives no driving directions in South Korea. We stood in the rental car park with the engine running, downloading Naver Map. Once it worked it was excellent. Every place name arrives in Korean first, though, and we spent the week matching shapes on a screen to shapes on a road sign.
Korea's First Maze Park, a Kilometre Up the Road
Gimnyeong Maze Park is about a kilometre from the cave car park. It is a hedge maze with a large resident cat population. We were in and out in forty minutes.
Manjanggul, Open Again After Two and a Half Years
Manjanggul lava tube closed in December 2023 after a rockfall and reopened on 30 May 2026, twenty days before we walked into it. It belongs to the Geomunoreum lava tube system, on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2007. The tube runs about 7.4 km in total and roughly 1 km of it is open to the public, ending at a lava column 7.6 m high, reported as the largest known anywhere. Inside it holds 11 to 15 degrees all year round. We went in wearing shorts in June and regretted it within four minutes. Hours are 09:00 to 18:00 with last entry at 17:10, and it shuts on the first Wednesday of every month.
Three Hours of Nothing at Woljeong-ri
Woljeong-ri is a white sand beach on the north east coast, lined with cafes that all face the same way. We took a table and sat for three hours watching a man repeatedly fail to get a kite into the air. There is an Olle stamp box a short walk along the shore, and we had bought the paper Olle passport for 20,000 won at an information point that morning, so this became stamp number two. It was the best afternoon of the trip and there is nothing more to say about it.
The Haenyeo Demonstration at 13:30
The haenyeo divers give free demonstrations on the small beach beside the peak, listed at 13:30 and 15:00, weather permitting. Jeju had more than 23,000 registered divers in the 1960s. By the end of 2024 the number was reported at around 2,600, with over 90 per cent of them past 60. UNESCO inscribed the culture of the Jeju haenyeo on its intangible heritage list in 2016. The two women who came out of the water that afternoon were both older than my mother and stayed under longer than I can hold my breath sitting down.
Up Sunrise Peak Before the Ticket Booth Opened
Seongsan Ilchulbong is a tuff cone thrown up by a shallow sea eruption around 5,000 years ago, standing 182 m above the water and UNESCO listed. Entry is 5,000 won and the climb is twenty to thirty minutes of stairs. Summer hours are 07:10 to 19:00. We were at the gate at 05:40 for a sunrise that had happened at roughly 05:15, which tells you how the alarm went. The booth was unstaffed and nobody stopped us, so we did not pay, which I feel mildly bad about. The wind at the top took my hat over the crater rim.
Peanut Ice Cream at the Foot of Udobong
Udo grows peanuts and sells the ice cream everywhere on the island. It is a faintly savoury soft serve and better than that description makes it sound. Udobong is the high point of the island and the walk up took us about twenty minutes on a paved path.
The Late Ferry Back From Cheonjin
We queued twenty minutes for it. That is the whole event.
The Shuttle Loop, Because Neither of Us Had the Licence for a Scooter
Scooter hire on Udo needs a driving licence and they do check it. The hop on hop off shuttle runs the island loop about every fifteen minutes and stops at Seobinbaeksa, Hagosudong, Udobong and the botanical garden, with tickets sold on the island. We rode the whole circuit once without getting off, purely to see what was there, then went back to Seobinbaeksa, where what looks like white sand is broken coral.
8,900 Won to Udo, and the Car Stays Behind
Ferries leave Seongsan Port for Udo roughly every half hour and the crossing takes about fifteen minutes. A return adult ticket was around 8,900 won, children 4,900. You buy at the window on the day and fill in a boarding form with your passport details. Rental cars are not allowed onto the island at all. The exceptions are oddly specific: you may bring a car if you are travelling with someone born before 1954, with a pregnant woman carrying a diagnosis document, with a wheelchair user, or with a child under six. We left ours in the port car park.
Seongpanak Gate at 05:10, Car Park Already Full
Summer entry on Hallasan opens at 05:00. Seongpanak is 9.6 km one way to Baengnokdam and the posted guide time is four and a half to five hours up. The gate check wants your QR code and your original passport, matched by name. Parking is the real constraint and the lot was full when we arrived at 05:10 on a Monday, so we ended up at the overflow by Jeju International University and lost about thirty five minutes getting back. The shelters have sold no food or water since 2018, so everything you drink you carry. We took four litres between two of us and finished all of it.
Jindallaebat Shelter and the Rule About Ramyeon Broth
The checkpoint at Jindallaebat closes at 13:00 in summer, and if you are a minute late the rangers turn you back down. We passed it at 08:55. There is a strict rule about ramyeon: you may carry it up with a thermos, but tipping the leftover broth onto the ground is banned outright because of what the salt does to the soil, so you either drink it or you carry it down in a bottle. We watched a man decant his into an empty water bottle with enormous care.
Baengnokdam, in Cloud
The crater lake at the top is Baengnokdam, white deer lake. We reached it at 10:40 and saw maybe forty metres of it before the cloud shut. Rangers clear the summit by 14:30 in summer, so there is no sitting it out and waiting for weather. There is an official summit certificate if you want one: photograph yourself at the marker with your phone GPS switched on, upload it with your reservation details, pay 1,000 won online, then print the thing from a kiosk back at the trailhead. I bought one. It is on the fridge.
Down the Same Way
Nine point six kilometres back down the way we came up. Eight hours and forty minutes on the mountain in total. My knees hurt more than my legs for two days afterwards.
Yongmeori Was Shut and We Had Not Read the Tide Table
The Yongmeori coastal path runs along the base of a tuff cliff below Sanbangsan and it opens only at low tide. It also closes for high water, strong wind or rough sea, and it closes often. Entry is 2,000 won on its own, or a combined Sanbangsan and Yongmeori ticket at 2,500 won for adults and 1,500 won for children. We arrived at 11:00 to a rope across the steps and a laminated sign. The tide tables are published in advance. We had not looked at them. Doing this again I would build the whole south coast day around the tide and let everything else move around it.
Sagye Beach, Which Filled the Morning
Sagye is a black sand beach ten minutes along the coast with Sanbangsan sitting behind it, and on a clear day Hallasan is visible from the water line. We ate gimbap on a bench. Divers were working the rocks at the far end. We had two hours to fill and this filled them.
Black Pork at Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market
Seogwipo Maeil Olle Market is covered, which mattered because it rained all afternoon. Jeju black pork, heukdwaeji, runs roughly 20,000 to 25,000 won for a 200 g portion at an ordinary sit down place, and a good deal more at the polished restaurants. In the market itself we ate it in cheaper forms, griddled with kimchi and folded into fried dumplings. The dumplings were better than the barbecue and cost a fraction of it.
Three Stamps in a Book With Room for Twenty-Six Routes
The Jeju Olle Trail is 26 numbered walking routes around the island, about 437 km in total. We bought the paper passport early in the week for 20,000 won, meaning to collect stamps as we went. We got three. The completion certificate needs every stamp in the book, and the small medal that goes with it costs another 5,000 won, so at our rate that is a project spanning several more visits. Everything factual here was checked in August 2026 against the Korea Herald, Visit Jeju, the Jeju Olle Trail English guide, the Hallasan National Park reservation site and the UNESCO intangible heritage listing. The photographs are freely licensed Wikimedia Commons files, standing in until we upload our own.