Nami Island
River Island In The Bukhan River; Filming Location Of The 2002 Drama Winter Sonata; Styled The Naminara Republic · Chuncheon, Gangwon
A half-moon-shaped island of about 460,000 square metres in the Bukhan River, reached by a short ferry ride from Gapyeong wharf about an hour and a half east of Seoul. It was left as an island when the Cheongpyeong Dam raised the river in the 1940s, and takes its name from General Nami, a young 15th-century commander whose memorial mound stands near the landing. From the 1960s it was planted as a private garden park, and it became famous across Asia after the 2002 KBS drama Winter Sonata, one of the first great hits of the Korean wave, filmed its romantic scenes on the island's tree avenues. Today it styles itself the Naminara Republic, with a playful entry ticket sold as a visa, its own flag and quirky art. Visitors walk and cycle under tall avenues of metasequoia, ginkgo, birch and Korean pine that blaze yellow and red in autumn and lie under snow in winter, meet the free-roaming ostriches, peacocks, rabbits and squirrels, and eat Chuncheon dakgalbi. Many combine it with Petite France, the Garden of Morning Calm and the Gangchon rail bike.
1 Namiseom-gil, Namsan-myeon, Chuncheon, Gangwon, 24464, South Korea
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the ferries run from roughly 7 or 8 am to about 9 pm, more often at busy times, and the island is open every day of the year including holidays. Shops, restaurants and bike rental keep shorter daytime hours, and the zipline runs from about 9 am to 6 pm in set slots, closing in bad weather. Traps: arriving at 11 am on an autumn weekend to hour-long ferry queues; the zipline sold out or stopped by wind; missing the last Gapyeong City Tour bus or ITX back; forgetting a passport for the foreigners' rate.