속초 (Sokcho) — The Name That Holds Seoraksan and the East Sea in One City
속초 (Sokcho)
속초 (Sokcho) is the name of a city on the East Sea coast of Gangwon State — a place where Seoraksan rises behind you and the East Sea opens in front of you, one of Korea’s signature travel destinations. When “What are you doing this weekend?” starts making the rounds of the office on a Friday evening, these two syllables are one of the likeliest answers to come out of a Korean’s mouth. Two and a half hours from Seoul by express bus. Close enough that you can leave in the morning, eat raw fish at lunch, and be home by evening — so for Koreans, Sokcho is less “going far away” and more “popping out to look at the sea for a bit.”
It’s a place name, so the definition itself is short. But what a Korean learner actually needs isn’t the coordinates — it’s the temperature. When 속초 (Sokcho) drops into a conversation, a whole bundle of things comes along with it in a Korean’s head: fresh-caught raw fish and summer 물회 (mulhoe), 오징어순대 (ojingeo-sundae), the briny dawn wind at the harbor, the long line at the Seoraksan cable car during fall foliage season, and the winter sea with nobody on it. So saying 속초 간다 (Sokcho ganda) looks like naming a single city, but the person listening has already been handed a full weekend itinerary.
In hanja it’s written 束草, using 묶을 속(束) “to bind” and 풀 초(草) “grass.” Just going by the characters, you get a picture of “tying up grass” — but even locally, the accounts of how the name came about branch off in several directions. Since it’s hard to state one settled origin with confidence, remembering the hanja spelling is enough here.
A Real Conversation
Situation: 5:30 on a Saturday morning, the waiting room of the Dong Seoul Bus Terminal. They’re waiting for the first bus, tearing open convenience-store gimbap.
Jun-kyung: 야, 표 잘 챙겼지? 속초 6시 10분 거. Hey, you’ve got the ticket, right? The 6:10 to Sokcho.
Emily: 응, 여기. 근데 우리 도착하면 몇 시야? Yeah, here it is. But what time do we get there?
Jun-kyung: 두 시간 반쯤? 내리자마자 바로 회 먹으러 가자. About two and a half hours? Let’s go straight for raw fish the moment we get off.
Emily: 나 속초는 진짜 처음이야. 갯배 그거, 사람이 줄 당겨서 건너는 거 맞아? It’s honestly my first time in Sokcho. That gaetbae thing — people really pull it across by hand?
Jun-kyung: 어, 진짜야. 타 보면 일 분도 안 걸리는데 이상하게 오래 기억에 남아. Yeah, really. The ride takes less than a minute, but somehow it stays with you.
Emily: 좋다. 그럼 속초 가서 순대도 먹자. 아바이순대. Nice. Then let’s eat sundae in Sokcho too — abai sundae.
These Versions Sound Off
Sokcho isn’t a word that discriminates between people, so there’s almost no way to be rude with it. Instead, here are the two things learners actually trip over.
✗ 이번 주말에 속초시에 놀러 가요. (ibeon jumare Sokcho-si-e nolleo gayo.) ✓ 이번 주말에 속초에 놀러 가요. (ibeon jumare Sokcho-e nolleo gayo.) → I’m taking a trip to Sokcho this weekend. ‘시 (si)’ is an administrative unit, so it belongs to the register of news reports and official documents. In everyday conversation you say just the city name. It’s the same reason you say 서울 (Seoul) rather than 서울시 (Seoul-si), and 부산 (Busan) rather than 부산시 (Busan-si).
✗ 지난주에 속초 커피거리 갔다 왔어. (jinanjue Sokcho keopigeori gatda wasseo.) ✓ 지난주에 강릉 커피거리 갔다 왔어. 속초에선 회 먹었고. (jinanjue Gangneung keopigeori gatda wasseo. Sokcho-eseon hoe meogeotgo.) → I went to the Gangneung coffee street last week. In Sokcho I had raw fish. The East Sea coastal cities sit within an hour of each other by bus, so they get mixed up constantly. Coffee Street (Anmok Beach) and Gyeongpodae are Gangneung; surfing is Yangyang; Seoraksan and Abai Village are Sokcho. To a Korean the distinction is pretty sharp, so if you mix them up you’ll get corrected on the spot.
Example Sentences by Situation
Situation 1 · Friday, on the way home from work, telling a coworker your weekend plans
이번 주말에 속초 가려고. (ibeon jumare Sokcho garyeogo.) I’m thinking of heading to Sokcho this weekend.
Trailing the sentence off with ‘-려고 (-ryeogo)’ gives it the looseness of “I’ve made up my mind to go, but it’s not locked in yet.” On top of that, dropping the particle ‘에 (e)’ and running it together as 속초 가려고 is the most common spoken form. If the other person shows interest, it flows naturally into 같이 갈래? (gachi gallae?) — “Want to come along?”
Situation 2 · Getting off at the terminal and looking for the market
속초관광수산시장까지 어떻게 가요? (Sokcho-gwan-gwang-susan-sijang-kkaji eotteoke gayo?) How do I get to Sokcho Tourist and Fishery Market?
Downtown Sokcho isn’t big, so the market is only a few bus stops from the terminal. Attaching ‘-까지 (-kkaji)’ to your destination and ending with 어떻게 가요? (eotteoke gayo?) is the safest sentence there is — it asks about the route, the transit option, and the travel time all at once.
Situation 3 · Sharing your impressions after a trip
속초는 겨울 바다가 진짜예요. (Sokchoneun gyeoul badaga jinjjayeyo.) Sokcho’s winter sea is the real deal.
Used this way, ‘진짜다 (jinjjada)’ doesn’t mean “it’s true” — it becomes an exclamation along the lines of “it’s the genuine article, it delivers.” It’s the phrasing Koreans love to reach for when talking about the East Sea in winter, emptied of crowds. Peak-summer Sokcho and midwinter Sokcho are two very different cities, so this sentence doubles as a quiet recommendation to “go in the off-season.”
Polite and Casual Forms, and Related Expressions
A place name itself is neither polite nor casual. The level is set by the sentence wrapped around Sokcho. Casual is 속초 가? (Sokcho ga?), polite is 속초 가세요? (Sokcho gaseyo?), and formal becomes 속초에 다녀왔습니다. (Sokcho-e danyeowatseumnida.) The particle ‘에 (e)’ is a temperature dial too. Among friends you drop it, as in 속초 간다 (Sokcho ganda); in a report or a presentation you keep it alive, as in 속초에 갑니다 (Sokcho-e gamnida).
Lining it up next to its easily confused neighbors makes its place clear.
| Expression | Tone & intensity | Where it’s used |
|---|---|---|
| 속초 (Sokcho) | A neutral city name. The moment you say it, a travel itinerary comes to mind with it | Anywhere. The single phrase 속초 간다 (Sokcho ganda) explains your whole weekend |
| 설악산 (Seoraksan) | One mountain. Images of hiking boots and fall foliage | It’s a national park spanning Sokcho, Yangyang, and Inje, so 설악산 간다 (Seoraksan ganda) doesn’t automatically mean 속초 간다 (Sokcho ganda) |
| 동해 (Donghae) | A big word covering the whole sea | When you’re not naming a specific city. Note that there’s also a separate city called 동해시 (Donghae-si), so context is needed |
| 강릉 (Gangneung) | The neighboring city. Images of coffee and Gyeongpodae | A little over an hour from Sokcho. Close, but unmistakably a different city |
Cultural Background — Gaetbae and a City of Displaced People
What sets Sokcho apart from the other East Sea coastal cities isn’t the scenery — it’s the history of its people. During the Korean War, refugees who had come south from Hamgyong Province found the road back to their hometowns blocked, so they settled on the sandbar across Cheongchoho Lagoon and built a village there. That place is today’s Abai Village. ‘아바이 (abai)’ is the Hamgyong dialect word for an older man, and 아바이순대 (abai-sundae), known as Sokcho’s signature dish, wasn’t originally native to Sokcho at all — it’s a Hamgyong food that came south and put down roots in this city. That’s why you run into words like 함흥 (Hamheung) and 아바이 (abai) so unusually often on restaurant signs downtown.
The 갯배 (gaetbae) that crosses over to that village is a boat with no engine. Passengers hook the steel cable strung across the channel and haul themselves over by hand. The whole crossing takes less than a minute, but people who’ve ridden it tend to remember that short stretch of time for a long while. Even more so once you know that the people who had turned their backs on a hometown they could never return to, and set up house across the water, pulled that cable every single day. The gaetbae became known nationwide when it appeared as a setting in the 2000 drama 《가을동화 (Gaeul Donghwa)》 / Autumn in My Heart (KBS, 2000). After the scene where the leads confirm their feelings out on that channel aired, Sokcho became, for years, “the city you visit because of the drama.”
And then Seoraksan sits on top of all that. Between the massive granite ridge of Ulsanbawi, Sinheungsa Temple, and an observation deck one cable car ride away — cities where the distance from sea to mountain is under thirty minutes aren’t common even in Korea. When the Seoul–Yangyang Expressway opened in 2017, the distance from Seoul shrank dramatically, and Sokcho’s character shifted from “a place you work up to going” to “a place you just go.” The fact that Koreans can now toss out 내일 속초 갈까? (naeil Sokcho galkka?) — “Want to go to Sokcho tomorrow?” — on a Friday night is actually a fairly recent development.
Today’s Quiz
A friend says to you: 나 이번 주말에 속초 간다. (na ibeon jumare Sokcho ganda.) — I’m going to Sokcho this weekend. Which of the following is the most natural response?
- 우와, 비행기 몇 시야? (uwa, bihaenggi myeot siya?) — Wow, what time’s your flight?
- 좋겠다! 회 먹고 와. (jokketda! hoe meokgo wa.) — Lucky you! Have some raw fish while you’re there.
- 속초시에 무슨 일 있어? (Sokcho-si-e museun il isseo?) — Is something going on in Sokcho City?
The answer is 2. Option 1 is odd because it’s two and a half hours from Seoul by bus, and option 3 sticks the administrative unit ‘시 (si)’ into everyday conversation, turning it into official-document register. Adding something like 회 먹고 와 (hoe meokgo wa) or 바다 사진 보내 (bada sajin bonae) — “send me photos of the sea” — the way option 2 does signals that you share the whole picture the name Sokcho drags along with it.
Definitions and example sentences are from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Basic Korean Dictionary (krdict.korean.go.kr); that portion of this post, including our translations, is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 KR.