Looking for a place abroad where you can communicate with nature?

Voila! Korea is hosting this year’s biggest International Garden Expo, allowing everyone to access green space and experience beautiful landscape gardens with refreshing air in the area.

With the theme “Life Inside Gardens,” the ongoing 2023 Suncheoman International Garden Expo will run until 31 October. It targets to attract up to eight million visitors, including 320,000 foreigners from different countries all over the world.

This initiative aims to promote green infrastructures, gain international participation in climate change response, foster a garden industry as well as revitalize ecology and the garden-based tourism industry.

It features National Garden that provides tourists a place to rest and contemplate the relaxing views of urban gardening.

The program was originated by the civic groups that initiated the Suncheon Bay conservation seeking the permanent preservation of the city wetland.

The Garden Expo 2023, located in Suncheon City, southeast of Jeollanam-do province, is officially recognized by the Korean government and the International Association of Horticultural Producers.

Korea previously hosted the first-ever International Suncheon Bay Garden Expo serving more than 4.4 million tourists in the same period in 2013.

This year’s expo covers an area of 1.93 million square meters — the size of 234 soccer fields and twice as large as the last edition’s a decade ago. An estimated 2.5 million flowers of 120 types and 828,700 trees of 446 types were planted for the occasion.

It also features the Suncheonman Wetland, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage area, and the Downtown Suncheon area.

Inside the area, the Garden Dream Boats transport visitors to Dongcheon Stream that crosses the city›s old downtown to reach Suncheonman Bay. The four vessels can each accommodate a maximum of 12 passengers and one up to 20 from Suncheon Station ferry dock to the Suncheon Lake Garden inside Suncheonman Bay National Garden.

The 1.03 km-long road near the exhibition that starts from Dongcheon Reservoir to the south gate was transformed into a Green Island — by filling it with soil and laying grass.

The expo forms part of the Korean government’s tourism campaign #KoreaNaTayo for Filipinos, inviting us to also visit their countryside. The Korea Tourism Organization is urging tourists to visit the expo before it ends in October. Application for the expo tickets can be done by a group of 20 locals and 10 foreign visitors via online through the mobile apps or websites of Interpark Tickets and Yanolja.