Top 10 Korea #5 — Gangneung: KTX 2h to Korea's Coffee Capital and Cleanest Beach Sand

Gangneung sits on the east coast at the foot of the Taebaek mountains and quietly became the country's coffee capital in the late 1990s, when one veteran barista named Park Yi-chu opened Bohemian Roasters on Anmok Beach. Twenty years later, the whole beachfront strip is lined with specialty roasters, and the city hosts the country's largest annual coffee festival every October. Three visits do justice to the city. Anmok Beach Coffee Street (안목해변 커피거리) is the kilometer-long strip of independent roasters facing the ocean — order a hand-drip, sit on the sand, and watch the surfers; Terarosa Gangneung and Bohemian Roasters are the two everyone names. Jeongdongjin (정동진) is the train station on the cliff edge built into the sand — the same station that was made famous by an old K-drama and where Koreans go specifically to watch the first sunrise of the new year. And Gyeongpo Beach (경포해변) is the Olympic legacy beach, wider and quieter than Haeundae, and the place to stay if you want pine forests behind your ocean view. Getting there: KTX from Seoul Cheongnyangni to Gangneung takes 2 hours, around ₩30,000. The line opened in 2018 for the Pyeongchang Olympics and remains underused — even peak summer weekends rarely sell out. Practical tips: Gangneung's tofu cuisine (초당두부) was historically based on saltwater curdling; visit Chodang Sundubu Village on the way back from the beach for the original. Sun rises around 05:30 in summer — set the alarm and the photos will be worth it. Up next on #6: a guided day tour brings you face-to-face with the world's most heavily armed border.