Maengbang Beach

The lifeguard stand at Maengbang Beach wears a permanent grin, watching over swimmers with the kind of relentless cheerfulness only an inanimate object can muster. It has become one of the beach’s most photographed structures, and for good reason: nothing says “safe swimming” quite like a giant yellow smiley face staring you down from the shoreline.

These days, Maengbang is better known to many visitors as Butter Beach. BTS photographed the jacket imagery for their 2021 single here, and this once relatively quiet corner of South Korea’s east coast became a pilgrimage site for K-pop devotees from around the world.

But the beach has other claims to fame. Each spring, the surrounding countryside turns yellow for the Samcheok Maengbang Canola Flower Festival, when fields of canola blossoms bloom beside rows of cherry trees and the blue East Sea. Even without a world-famous boy band in sight, the scenery seems carefully color-coordinated.