Yeosu travel info

Yeosu is a city that starts a second time after dark. By day it's the harbour, the fish market and the smell of grilled fish. When the sun goes down, the Dolsan Bridge lights up and the cabins of the Maritime Cable Car slide slowly across the water. Along Jongpo Maritime Park, tents for the pocha street stalls go up, and people sit in the sea breeze grilling seafood samhap. A 2012 song called 'Yeosu Night Sea' carried the city's name across Korea, and in person the lights turn out to be a lot closer than the lyrics.

The centre is compact. Yi Sun-sin Square, Jinnamgwan Hall and the fish market are a walk apart. Next to Yeosu Expo Station, where the KTX stops, sit the waterfront park and Aqua Planet left over from the 2012 World Expo, and you can walk from the station to Odongdo. That small island blooms with camellias from late winter into early spring, and you reach it on foot along a breakwater path. Cross the bridge to Dolsan Island for mustard-leaf fields and the sunrise at Hyangilam Hermitage, or take a boat out to island hikes like the Geumo Island Biryeongil trail.

Food here comes down to the sea and mustard-leaf kimchi: soy-marinated crab with rice, seasoned slices of sole, eel soup, samhap and, in summer, hamo shabu-shabu. From Seoul it's a little over three hours by KTX, so one night is the usual stay. Until 4 November 2026 the World Island Expo is running on Dolsan, so roads and rooms over there are busier than usual.

From Seoul (KTX)

From Gwangju, Busan and other cities (BUS)

From the airport (RSU)