South Korea
Banwol Island
A farming island where the roofs, bridges, and crops are aggressively, hallucinogenically purple.
The bridge is purple. The roofs are purple. The rice is purple. Even the lavender fields are, obviously, purple. Banwol Island committed to a colour scheme in 2015 and has not looked back.
Banwol Island was a declining agricultural community of fewer than 200 residents when a government-funded revitalisation project repainted the entire island purple in 2015. The intervention was deliberate and total: roofs, walls, bridges, fences, and even the connecting 1.5km bridge to neighbouring Bakji Island received the treatment. The local agriculture adapted — purple sweet potatoes, purple rice, and commercial lavender fields now reinforce the colour identity. The result is visually surreal: a working farming island where daily life continues beneath an aggressively monochrome aesthetic. The remaining fishermen still pull octopus from the surrounding waters. The island generates roughly 500,000 visitors annually — a number that would have been inconceivable before the purple.
Friends
The visual absurdity of an entirely purple island is best experienced as a group — the photos, the jokes, the purple ice cream.
Couple
The lavender fields, purple bridges, and quiet island pace create an unexpectedly photogenic and romantic half-day visit.
Family
Children are immediately captivated by the colour — everything is purple, nothing is subtle, and the island is small enough to explore in a few hours.
- The entire island was repainted purple in 2015 as a tourism revitalisation project
- Purple rice, purple sweet potatoes, and lavender are all commercially farmed
- A 1.5km bridge connecting Banwol and Bakji islands is painted entirely purple
- Fewer than 200 people live on the island year-round
Purple sweet potato rice served in island diners overlooking the lavender fields.
Octopus caught by the remaining village fishermen, boiled and sliced thin.
Hideaway Island
Vanuatu
Post a waterproof postcard from the world's only underwater post office, then snorkel its coral reef.
Isla Magdalena
Chile
Magellanic penguins in their tens of thousands, nesting so close you walk through their colony.
Buracona
Cape Verde
At midday, sunlight plunges through volcanic rock and ignites an underwater cave into electric blue.
Santa Maria
Cape Verde
Trade winds blast a long golden beach where kitesurfers trace arcs above turquoise Atlantic rollers.
Maryang-ri
South Korea
A five-hundred-year-old forest of camellia trees bleeding red flowers against the grey winter sea.
Seoul
South Korea
Midnight street food steaming under neon alleys beside fourteenth-century palace gates.
Gyeongju
South Korea
Grassy burial mounds the size of hills looming silently over a modern grid of streets.
Andong Hahoe Village
South Korea
A six-hundred-year-old clan village wrapped in a river bend where wooden manors smell of woodsmoke.