Gapado Island, Olle Course 10-1: Where You Can See Jeju's Mountains From the Sea

Everyone tells you to visit Gapado in spring for the green barley. Nobody mentions what it looks like in October: an orange-yellow field in front of you, and Mount Halla floating on the horizon behind it.


Yellow cosmos field on Gapado Island with Jeju's mountains in the distance.


Course at a Glance

  • Course: Jeju Olle Course 10-1 (Gapado loop)
  • Distance: About 4.2 km, a full loop of the island
  • Time: About 1 hour 20 minutes at my walking pace
  • Difficulty: Easy. The island is almost completely flat.
  • Getting there: 10-minute ferry from Unjin Port (운진항)
  • Season I visited: October

Why This Course

Most Olle courses are long, point-to-point walks that take most of a day. Course 10-1 is different: it circles an entire small island, and you can finish it in well under two hours. That makes it one of the easiest Olle courses to try if you have never walked one, and it is the reason I wanted to go back the moment I finished.

The Walk

The trail follows the coast, so you spend much of it walking right beside the sea. Far off, Marado sits on the horizon.

Inland, the island opens into wide fields. In spring this is barley country. When I went in October, the field in front of me was full of small orange-yellow flowers: yellow cosmos, which bloom across Gapado's fields from September through October. Past them, across the water, Jeju itself rises in a long blue line.

A narrow lane lined with black basalt walls in a Gapado village.



The village is where the island feels most Korean to me. Low houses with green and red roofs, narrow lanes, black stone walls on both sides. It is small and carefully kept, and it has a quiet beauty I can only call very Korean.

The Culture Layer: Six Mountains

On the trail, a blue marker and an information board stand at the coast. This one is titled “Six Mountains.” It explains that Jeju has seven true mountains, as opposed to oreum, the small volcanic cones Jeju is famous for, and that from Gapado you can see all of them except Yeongjusan: Hallasan, Sanbangsan, Songaksan, Gunsan, Gogeunsan, and Danssan.

Olle Course 10-1 information sign titled Six Mountains, with Jeju's mountains in the background.


I liked this because most trail signs tell you where to turn. This one tells you where to look. You stand on a small island, and the sign points you back at the big one.

Getting There

Gapado is a 10-minute ferry ride from Unjin Port (운진항) on Jeju's southwest coast. Boats leave roughly hourly from about 9 a.m., with a gap around lunch and a final departure in mid-afternoon. A round trip costs about ₩15,500 for an adult (₩14,500 for the ferry plus a ₩1,000 marine park entrance fee), and a fuel surcharge may apply.

Tickets. You can book ahead on your phone and show the mobile boarding pass, or buy tickets at the port. Either way, bring an original photo ID. A photo of your ID on your phone is not accepted. Foreign visitors need a passport or an alien registration card.

At the port. Walk-up passengers fill out a boarding form (승선신고서), and one person per group takes the forms and everyone's ID to the ticket counter. Ticketing closes 10 minutes before departure and boarding ends at the same time, so do not cut it close, especially on weekends.

Plan your return before you go. The last boat back leaves Gapado around 4 p.m., and the loop takes about an hour and twenty minutes. Schedules shift with the season and weather, and extra sailings run during the barley festival, so check the operator's real-time page the morning you travel.

Practical Tips

  • Bring your physical ID and arrive earlier than you think you need to.

  • Check the weather and the ferry's real-time page before leaving. Sailings can be delayed or canceled.
  • Decide your return boat before you start walking. The loop is short, but the last boat is early.

My Take

Gapado is not big. I walked the whole loop in about an hour and twenty minutes, and maybe that is why it felt so approachable, like a place you could easily come back to.

The Olle path runs along the sea, and far off you can see Marado on the horizon. Cyclists circled the island. Couples strolled along the trail, chatting. And groups of ajummas and ajeossis in their fifties and sixties, clearly on a rare day out, were far too busy taking photos to notice anything else.

Last verified: October 2026. Fares and schedules change, so check the operator before you go.


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