Seongsan Ilchulbong 성산일출봉

Seongsan Ilchulbong opens at 05:00 until the end of October and at 06:00 from 1 November, early enough to stand on the rim at sunrise. The stepped climb takes 30–40 minutes, adults pay 5,000 won, and it is closed on the first Monday of each month (next: 2 November 2026).

Seongsan Ilchulbong (“Sunrise Peak”) is a 180 m tuff cone at the eastern tip of Jeju. It was made about 5,000 years ago when magma met seawater in shallow sea and exploded, piling up layers of wet ash that you can still see in the cliffs. At the top is a bowl-shaped crater about 600 m across, grown over with grass and silver grass. The peak was once an island; sand and gravel later joined it to the mainland. With Hallasan and the Geomunoreum lava tubes, it makes up the UNESCO World Natural Heritage site Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes (2007), and it has been a Natural Monument since 2000.

Sunrise or daytime?

The opening time is your earliest possible start, and the heritage office set it in March 2025 so that visitors can see the sunrise from the summit in every month. Before that the gates opened at 07:00 or 07:30, too late for most of the year.

Season	Gates open	Last ticket	Gates close
May–August	04:30	19:00	20:00
March–April, September–October	05:00	18:00	19:00
November–February	06:00	17:00	18:00

World Heritage Office, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, and Visit Jeju; checked 8 October 2026. For a sunrise climb, be at the gate at opening time and look up that day’s sunrise on the official sunrise and sunset calendar for Seongsan. Leave the hotel in the dark with a phone torch or headlamp.

• Choose sunrise if you are staying in Seongsan village or nearby, and if the forecast is clear over the sea to the east. The sunrise from the peak has long been ranked first among the Ten Scenic Views of Jeju.
• Choose daytime if you are coming by bus from Jeju City or Seogwipo, or if you want to combine the peak with the Udo ferry from nearby Seongsan Port.
• New Year is different. The Seongsan Sunrise Festival on 31 December draws large crowds for the first sunrise of the year.

The climb and what you see

The paid trail is a series of stairs and uphill sections to the crater rim, and Visit Jeju gives 30–40 minutes to the top. From the summit you look down into the wide crater and out over Seongsan village, the sea and the low island of Udo across the channel.

Between 09:00 and 16:00, World Natural Heritage interpreters are stationed at the summit and give a free talk of about 40 minutes on how the cone formed and its history.

Allow 1 to 1.5 hours for the round trip with time on top, and more if you also walk the free shore path.

The free section: Umutgae shore and the haenyeo show

You do not need a ticket for the lower path that leads down to the Umutgae shore at the foot of the cone. The slope is gentle, and the layered cliffs rise straight above you. Haenyeo, the island’s women free-divers, work this stretch of sea, and a haenyeo diving demonstration is held at the shore, with an introduction, a dive, the catch and seafood for sale. Korea’s tourism organization says the show is free with a Seongsan Ilchulbong ticket. Official sites do not publish fixed show times, so check the board at the entrance on the day.

Traces of military installations built by the Japanese army during the colonial period survive around the peak, and Teojinmok, the strip of land between the peak and the main island, is a site of the Jeju 4·3 Incident. Both are a reminder that this is not only a scenic spot.

Getting there

The peak sits on the eastern tip of the island, about as far from Jeju City as any major sight. Island buses go there directly, and a T-money card works on them.

From	Bus	Get off at
Jeju International Airport	Express 101	Seongsan Ilchulbong Entrance (성산일출봉입구)
Jeju Bus Terminal (Jeju City)	201 (east coast road)	Seongsan Ilchulbong Entrance
Seogwipo Bus Terminal	201	Seongsan Ilchulbong Entrance
Airport or Jeju Bus Terminal, for the Udo ferry	111 (both); 211, 212 (terminal)	Seongsan Port (terminus)

Route ends from the Jeju Bus Information System, checked 8 October 2026. The World Heritage Office puts the bus journey at about 70 minutes from the airport, about 57 minutes from Seogwipo and about 68 minutes from Jungmun. Both routes have several variants, so check the destination board before you board. By car, the coastal road 1132 runs all the way round via Hamdeok and Gimnyeong; parking at the peak is free.

Visitor tips

• Closed day. The first Monday of every month is the regular closure, moved to the Tuesday when the Monday is a public holiday. Next dates: 2 November and 7 December 2026, then 4 January 2027.
• Weather. The rim is exposed to sea wind. The heritage office can change hours when needed, and a sunrise trip is only worth it if the eastern sky is clear.
• No food. Bringing food into the site is not allowed, so eat before or after the climb.
• Shoes. The heritage office recommends trainers and light clothing; the path is stairs and uphill sections, with nothing technical.
• Combine with Udo. Ferries to Udo leave from Seongsan Port, a short distance from the peak, so you can climb first and take a boat afterwards.

Nearby

The rest of the east coast is easy to link up by bus or car: the Udo ferry from Seongsan Port, the Manjanggul lava tube and Bijarim forest to the north-west, and Seongeup Folk Village inland. See the east Jeju list on the Jeju guide and the Jeju region page for the island as a whole. To climb the island’s other UNESCO peak, see Hallasan.