Nami Island: the Tree Avenue, and Whether the Trip Is Worth It

The island is about half a square kilometre, flat, and laid out as a park: straight planted avenues, lawns, sculptures, a few cafés and restaurants, small galleries, ostriches and rabbits wandering around, and accommodation for anyone who wants to stay the night.

The avenues are the reason to come. Metasequoia, ginkgo, birch and pine were planted in rows decades ago and now form tunnels, and the photographs everyone takes are of a straight line of trunks receding into perspective.

It calls itself the Naminara Republic and issues its own novelty visa at the ferry gate, which is a marketing conceit that some visitors enjoy and others find twee. The island was made internationally famous by Winter Sonata, a drama filmed there in 2002, and there are still statues to it.

Two hours covers the island at a walking pace. A bicycle or the on-site shuttle halves that, which is worth considering if you are combining it with other stops.

Late October to early November. The ginkgo avenue turns gold, the metasequoia go copper, and the island looks like the photographs. It is also when every Korean and half the visitors in Seoul are there, so arrive on the first ferries.

April and May are the quiet alternative: green, mild, and almost empty on a weekday.

Winter is the drama season — bare trunks, snow on the avenues, and the specific look the television series made famous. Cold, but genuinely striking.

July and August are the ones to skip. Humid, green, mosquitoes, and nothing the island does better than a park in Seoul at a fifth of the travel time. If your trip falls in high summer, spend the day at Suwon's fortress or on Bukhansan instead.

Nami on its own is a three-hour round trip for a two-hour walk, and most people find that thin. The standard fixes are all within twenty minutes of the ferry pier.

The Garden of Morning Calm is a landscaped garden that runs an illumination season in the colder months and is the usual second stop.

The Gangchon rail park puts you on a rail bike along a disused railway line beside the river — the most enjoyable hour of the day for most groups, and the reason tours include it.

Petite France, a themed village nearby, appears on many itineraries and is a matter of taste.

A tour that strings two or three of these together is the format that makes the journey worth making. Doing Nami alone independently is possible and cheap, and mostly done by people who specifically want the avenues without a schedule.