Like last year but quite unlike the years before that, I started planning our two holidays for 2026 pretty early. The daughter starting a new course of studies and vacation period though was a new constraint, since she no longer has the same long June or December breaks as the wife or son does. For the June vacation, we had just a nine day window to work with – basically a Saturday to Sunday stretch. So, a number of itineraries were dusted off and evaluated, including:
Ho Chi Minh: we’d been keen to visit Vietnam again, and had already prepared a drawer itinerary for June 2025, though we ended up going to JB that year and month. The places we would cover include sites within the city, and also a two day stretch at the Mekong River. A 9 day stretch would have been on the long-ish side though unless we were venturing to other cities.
Xiamen/Nanjing: we wanted to also visit China again, coming out of the great vacation we had in the country in December 2025, and got our two usual tour companies to propose itineraries covering the general area. The two itineraries were fairly different and quite doable as the distances between places wouldn’t have been as far as what we experienced in December.
Jeju: like HCM, I also had a reasonably complete itinerary for Jeju that I did up, though for winter in Dec 2025 and for a 6 day stretch. Generally, a 5-6 day stretch is comfortable for Jeju. Anything more is either really taking it easy, or one is covering more of the island but with possibly repeated or same-same sights.
All three itineraries were quite viable, but had different advantages. A trip to HCM would have been the most affordable and super easy to plan, but the expectedly warm and humid weather was a turn-off. The weather in Xiamen was going to be slightly cooler compared to Singapore, and we would again have been treated to fantastic geographical sights. But the wife felt we’d just gone to China in December, and if we’re going there again at the end of this year [more on that in coming posts], she felt we really should go somewhere else in June. We’d been to Jeju before, albeit 20 years ago during our honeymoon and for just 3 nights. The preview picture in this blog entry is in fact from our visit to the island in Dec 2006!
We decided on Jeju over the weekend, largely on account that it’s not China, and that the weather would be even cooler than Xiamen. The 6 day itinerary from 2025 was significantly expanded, rechecked, and then optimised again based on where we’d likely be staying. Here’s what it looks like at this point of planning:
The broad strokes of the plan:
A south-Jeju segment from Days 01 to 04, followed by a northern-eastern segment from Days 05 to 09.
Initially, we planned to stay in just two places: in Seogwipo (south-Jeju), and Aewol or Jeju City (north-Jeju). But as visiting the famed Seongsan on the eastern coast and catching the morning sunrise there was going to be a key itinerary highlight, we opted to spend a night in Seopjikoji (east-Jeju) just to be able to be on the Seongsan peak early on the morning of Day 06 without having to do a long drive from either south or north Jeju.
This itinerary would pretty much cover 80% or so of what international visitors to Jeju would ever want to cover on the island. Some places would feel a bit samey samey too.
We’ve already booked Airbnb stays for Seogwipo and Seopjikoji. We’ve still yet to decide whether to stay in Aewol, or Jeju City for the last three nights.
We’d need to hire private drivers for at least Days 01 to 07.
ChatGPT has some increasing insights too after analysing this itinerary that I’ll post about in the coming days!