If Seoul is Korea at full volume, Busan is Korea with its shoes off. The country’s second city curls around a working harbour and a string of beaches, backed by green mountains, and it moves at the unhurried pace of a place that has always lived by the sea. You come for the sand and the seafood, but you stay for the mood: a big city that somehow feels like a holiday. Reachable from Seoul in a couple of hours by bullet train, it is the easiest and most rewarding second stop on a Korean trip.

How Busan is put together

Busan is long and thin, wrapped around bays and hills, so you will not walk it end to end. The good news is the metro is clean, cheap and English-signed, and a T-money card covers it along with the buses. Cluster your days by area rather than criss-crossing town.

The Haeundae area in the east is beach and resort central. The old downtown around Nampo-dong and Jagalchi holds the markets, the fish market and the hillside villages. Out on the coast sit the sea temples and cliff walks. Get a Korean map app and let the metro plus the odd short taxi do the work.

The beaches and the coast

Haeundae is the famous one: a wide arc of pale sand backed by high-rise hotels, buzzing all summer and lined with cafes and seafood restaurants year round. Quieter Gwangalli next door has the better view, its sand facing the graceful, illuminated Gwangan Bridge that lights up after dark. For something wilder, walk the cliffside Igidae coastal path or the seaside boardwalks near Songjeong.

Do not miss the coastal temples. Haedong Yonggungsa is a rare Buddhist temple built right on the rocks above the crashing sea, spectacular at sunrise. The Oryukdo Skywalk, a glass-floored ledge over the water, and the pretty pastel houses and railway line of Cheongsapo round out a perfect coastal day.

A seaside Buddhist temple with stone pagodas perched on rocks above the waves near Busan, South Korea

Gamcheon, the markets and the old town

Busan’s most photographed spot is Gamcheon Culture Village, a hillside of brightly painted houses stacked like building blocks, threaded with murals, tiny galleries and cafes. Go early, wear good shoes for the steep lanes, and be respectful: people actually live here.

Down in the old town, the Jagalchi Fish Market is a roaring, briny cathedral of seafood, Korea’s largest, where you pick your catch downstairs and have it cooked and served upstairs. Around it spread the food alleys and stalls of BIFF Square and Gukje Market, and the towering escalators and bookstalls of Bosu-dong Book Street. This is Busan at its most authentic and delicious.

Let the seafood market come aliveA guided food tour of Jagalchi and the old-town alleys means you eat the right things and skip the tourist traps

Where to eat

Busan eats from the sea, and you should too. Sit at Jagalchi for the freshest hoe, Korean-style raw fish, or a bubbling seafood stew. Try the local specialities: dwaeji gukbap, a hearty pork-and-rice soup born in this city, milmyeon cold wheat noodles, and ssiat hotteok, a Busan street snack of a sweet pancake stuffed with seeds and nuts.

For the full experience, spend an evening among the food tents and stalls of Gukje Market or the seafood restaurants along Gwangalli beach, plate after plate arriving as the bridge glows across the water. Read the food guide to know your gukbap from your gukbap.

Nightlife and day trips

By night, Gwangalli is the place to be, its beachfront bars and rooftops looking out at the illuminated bridge, while Seomyeon downtown has the densest cluster of bars, clubs and late-night eateries. It is a more relaxed scene than Seoul, more about a cold beer by the sea than a club until dawn.

For day trips, the jewel is Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla kingdom, an hour away, where grassy royal tombs, a stone grotto Buddha and the serene Bulguksa temple make an open-air museum of early Korea. Closer to home, ride the pretty Haeundae Blueline Park beach train along the coast, or take the ferry out to the cliffs and lighthouse of Taejongdae.

A wide sandy city beach backed by tall towers with people swimming under a summer sky in Busan, South Korea

The short version

Take the KTX down from Seoul, get a T-money card, and give Busan two or three unhurried days. Split your time between the beaches and sea temples in the east and the markets and Gamcheon in the west, eat everything that comes out of Jagalchi, and spend at least one evening on the sand at Gwangalli with the bridge lit up across the bay. Add a day trip to ancient Gyeongju if you can. Busan is not a city to conquer. It is a city to relax into, and the hardest part is leaving.