Autumn Foliage Retreat

Six weeks, moving south. The whole trip is being in the right valley in the right week.

A season to sit with

Korea's landscape is among the least known in Asia and among the most generous. For six weeks each autumn the mountains turn, valley by valley, and the best of it is found on foot in the early morning, then from a pavilion or a bench beside still water with nothing to do but look.

The days are shaped around exactly that. A long walk while the light is low, and an unhurried afternoon given over to the view, with somewhere comfortable waiting at the end of it.

Six weeks, moving south

For about six weeks a year the whole country turns, beginning on the northern ridges at the end of September and finishing in the palace gardens of Seoul in November. The colour travels south at its own pace and waits for nobody.

So this journey is built to move. We watch the front from September, and the route approved in summer is not quite the route travelled. Being in the right valley in the right week is the entire trip, and it is the part that cannot be arranged from abroad.

What the journey holds

Hiking the maple valleys: Guided hiking and trekking through Korea's great autumn mountains, such as Seoraksan, Naejangsan or Jirisan, each trail timed to the week its leaves turn.
Forest therapy: A guided session in one of Korea's healing forests, slow walking and deep breathing under the canopy as the leaves come down.
Autumn's table: The season's restorative food, such as pine mushrooms, chestnuts, jujubes and newly harvested rice, the dishes Koreans turn to as the air cools.
Hot spring evenings: A long soak in mineral waters after a day in the mountains, at springs such as Cheoksan near Seoraksan or Onyang, among the oldest in Korea.

Enquire

Travel with the colour

Tell us a little about what you have in mind and we will write back personally.