Moseulpo Yellowtail Festival, Jeju — 19–22 November 2026, free entry

The Southernmost Bangeo Festival at Moseulpo — bangeo is Japanese amberjack, sold in English as yellowtail — reaches its 26th edition this November. It began in 2001 and has run almost every year since, skipping only 2020 for COVID-19, and it is Jeju's best-known seafood festival: you catch winter yellowtail by hand, bid for it at auction and eat it at free tastings. This year it runs from Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November 2026, and the Korea Tourism Organization's VisitKorea listing, Visit Jeju and the festival committee's website all give the same dates and venue. We matched the three on 3 November and added the opening time and activity fees, which had not been published when the story first appeared on our blog.

When and where is the 2026 festival, and what is on?

The festival fills the waterfront around Moseulpo Port in Hamo-ri, Daejeong-eup. According to the committee's notice of 3 September, the opening ceremony is at 17:00 on Thursday 19 November and the closing ceremony on the evening of Sunday 22 November; the day-by-day stage timetable sits on a separate 'stage events' page of the festival website. VisitKorea gives this year's subtitle as 'a festival linking the sea, the land and people', which is the organisers' way of saying they want visitors to stay for the day, with other Daejeong produce and performances alongside the fish.

Why eat yellowtail at Moseulpo in November?

The festival committee puts it down to the sea. Yellowtail follow the Kuroshio Current and are caught off Korea's south and east coasts in summer and autumn too, but the fish that winter in the windy, fast-running water off south-west Jeju grow larger and firmer, the committee says. With plenty of food such as damselfish, they start to fatten from November to February and are at their oiliest around the time the snow comes. The festival is timed to that season.

Hand-catching, fishing and the auction: what do they cost?

Entry is free, but some activities are paid. The table follows the festival website's 'sea activities' page; all of them take sign-ups at the venue on the day. There is no online booking.

There is plenty that costs nothing. From 20 to 22 November, 11:00–16:00, a free giant-yellowtail tasting lets visitors open 'lucky keys' to win a fish, and the booths run free tastings of yellowtail dishes and a stall selling sashimi cheaply. A fire-service experience, a police booth and a public-health check-up tent are open on all four days.

How do you get from Jeju Airport to Moseulpo Port?

Moseulpo Port is about 40 km from Jeju International Airport. The committee's directions page says the drive takes about 1 hour 10 minutes via the Pyeonghwa-ro road; set the navigation to Moseulpo Port car park (모슬포항 주차장). As of 3 November no temporary car parks or shuttle buses had been announced. By bus, the committee lists three routes:

• Express 151 (towards Unjin Port) → get off at Hamo Sports Park (하모체육공원) → walk about 300 m to the port (about 1 hour 15 minutes)
• Express 152 (towards Unjin Port) → get off at Hamo Sports Park → walk about 300 m (about 1 hour 17 minutes)
• Express 182 → change to trunk bus 255 (towards Unjin Port) and get off at Moseulpo Port (모슬포항) (about 1 hour 30 minutes)

Unjin Port (Moseulpo South Port), south of the festival site, is where ferries leave for the islands of Gapado and Marado, so you can visit an island in the morning and come to the festival in the afternoon. Winter winds often stop the boats, though — check on the day whether they are sailing.

If there is no time for an island, Songaksan, also in Daejeong-eup, is close by. It is a small volcanic cone jutting into the sea with a crater on top and a trail along the cliffs, where late-autumn silver grass frames Sanbangsan mountain. The festival committee itself suggests pairing the festival with the Songaksan coast and the area's historic sites.

What to bring

• Activity fees are paid on site. Doing both the hand-catch and the fishing costs KRW 40,000 per person.
• The hand-catch means getting into the water, so a change of clothes and a towel are sensible. The official pages do not list what to bring.
• The Moseulpo waterfront is windy in late November. If you are staying for the opening ceremony or the closing fireworks, bring a windproof layer.
• The committee says the stage programme and activity times may change, so check the website's notices again before you set off.

Getting there and what to expect if you do not read Korean

Most visitors arrive through Jeju International Airport, with frequent domestic flights from Seoul Gimpo and other Korean airports; from the airport, the express buses above run to Moseulpo without a change, or it is about 70 minutes by hire car. Moseulpo is a working fishing town rather than a resort, so if you plan to stay for the evening events, look for a room in Moseulpo itself or in nearby Hallim or Jungmun before you go. On the day, expect a Korean-only festival: the stage, the announcements and the sign-up desks for the hand-catch and fishing all work in Korean, and the website lists no English signage or interpreter. That matters less than it sounds. The paid activities are a queue, a fee and a pen of fish — pointing and paying works — and the free tastings, the giant-yellowtail filleting show and the fireworks need no language at all. The auction is the one event where Korean helps, because bids are called aloud. Nothing is booked online, so there is no Korean phone number or card to get past; bring cash as a fallback for the activity fees, since the pages do not say which payment methods are accepted.