Things to do in Busan

Nature · Suyeong-gu

A city beach facing a suspension bridge that is lit differently every night, with a drone show over the water most weekends.

Local tip: Haeundae gets the tourists; Gwangalli is where people who live here actually go. The cafés along the back street have better views than the seafront ones and half the queue.

Food · Jung-gu

Korea's largest fish market, where you buy the fish downstairs and carry it upstairs to be cooked, beside the old downtown's cinema street.

Local tip: The rule is that you pay a per-plate charge upstairs on top of what the fish cost — agree both before anyone picks up a knife. The narrow lanes behind the market sell the same catch for less.

Neighborhood · Saha-gu

A hillside of pastel houses built by refugees during the Korean War, now painted, mapped and heavily visited.

Local tip: People live here and the alleys are their front doors. Go on a weekday morning, walk uphill first and coast down, and skip the photo spots with queues — the views from the unmarked side lanes are the same.

Landmark · Seo-gu

Korea's oldest public beach, with a glass-floored pier and a cable car strung across the bay to Amnam Park.

Local tip: Not to be confused with Songdo in Incheon, which confuses even Koreans. Take the cable car one way and walk back along the Amnam Park cliff path — it is the best coastal walk inside the city.

Culture · Geumjeong-gu

A 7th-century mountain temple at the foot of the ridge that forms Busan's spine, with a long fortress wall along the top.

Local tip: The temple is twenty minutes' bus ride from Beomeosa station on Line 1. Walking the Geumjeong fortress wall north to south takes most of a day and is the closest thing Busan has to a hiking rite of passage.

Neighborhood · Yeongdo-gu

A single-file cliff path above the shipyards on the island side, with the sea on one hand and tiny houses on the other.

Local tip: Most visitors do the fifteen-minute photo stop and leave. Carry on around the island to Jeoryeong coastal walk and Taejongdae and you get three hours of empty cliff path. Yeongdo is also one of the districts on the population-decline visa list — cheap rents and a genuine neighbourhood behind the view.