Travel News: News Scraps

The two ends of the perennially chart-topping link are Seoul’s Gimpo Airport and Jeju Island, which for many Koreans constitutes the most accessible holiday getaway. […] If you like your island to be volcanic with beaches, rather like the Canary Islands, Jeju is a very pleasant place to be. And it is as far south as Crete. Well worth checking out Continue Reading . . .

From late September, waves of colour sweep south through the Korean peninsula. The most renowned leaf-peeping hotspot is Seoraksan National Park in the north-east – and on Regent Holidays’ 11-day Classic South Korea Group Tour you can roam its hiking trails, as well as exploring Seoul, browsing Busan’s fish market, visiting historic Buddhist shrines and tombs, and experiencing the serenity Continue Reading . . .

In repose between mountains and sea, Busan is a stunning confluence of scenery, culture and cuisine. It’s long been domestically lauded as the country’s best beach getaway, but South Korea’s second largest city packs an eclectic offering of activities to suit all travellers: hike hills to Buddhist temples, settle into sizzling hot springs and feast on seafood still a-wriggle at Jagalchi, the country’s largest Continue Reading . . .

BTS and EXO went head to head in a poll for whose song should be played at the World Cup final, and for a long time it was absolutely neck and neck. But in the final stretch of the poll EXO pipped BTS to the post and were named the performers for the game on 15 July. . . .

Few people realise that South Korea is one of the most bike-friendly countries in the world. More than 1,500 miles of dedicated paved paths  network the country through stunning vistas, including Unesco World Heritage sites and Buddhist temples. . . .

South Korean boy band BTS have become the first K-pop artists to reach number one on the US album charts. The K-pop superstars are part of the so-called Korean Wave, the global rise of Korean music, drama and film. Known for their meticulously choreographed dance style and boyish good looks, the seven-member group is one of the country’s best selling Continue Reading . . .

South Korea’s bustling capital city is crammed with gleaming skyscrapers, packed with lower-slung commercial and residential developments, and woven with a network of multi-lane, gridlocked roadways. Yet amid all these trappings of urbanisation, hovering above a jumble of railroad tracks, curves a spectacular, half mile-long park that has totally revitalised a derelict streetscape. This is Seoullo 7017 Skygarden, a €60m (£52m) project Continue Reading . . .

Passengers arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport (number two on this year’s best airports list) for the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games in February were among the first to try out the airport’s state-of-the-art new Terminal 2, opened only weeks before. As well as adding much-needed capacity to the country’s main international gateway, developers designed the building around passenger needs by Continue Reading . . .

I’m not particularly hungover, having stuck to local Hite beer the evening before, but the restorative effects of Korean haejang-guk, or “hangover soup” would probably cure even the pain of a truly big night out. At 8am there’s already a queue outside the tiny cafe at the back of Nambu market in provincial capital Jeonju (has the whole city been on Continue Reading . . .

As the Winter Olympics continue in South Korea, here we highlight some of the most interesting and quirky facts about the country. . . .