In 2018, my wife and I started cycle touring with a tour of Vietnam after falling in love with our tandem bicycle. Since then, cycling has been our favourite holiday mode. We have cycled Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, France, Germany, Netherlands and Austria. Korea has been our favourite destination for many reasons, which I cover here.
Here are 9 great reasons to cycle touring in South Korea.
Reason 1: Touring Infrastructure
In 2011, a multimillion-dollar bicycle network was constructed across the country. The network consists of 2,700 kilometres of trails. Some network sections are shared with cars, but most network consists of beautiful bike paths. With all our touring, we have found that Korea has the best intercity bike paths.
Generally, cycling infrastructure inside cities is different from the same standard. Seoul has a cycle path that goes the entire length of the Han River, but outside that, dedicated cycling facilities are more limited.
It’s not a road – it is a cycleway
Reason 2: Established Touring System
The touring system consists of several rides along Korea’s rivers and the east coast. Here is a broad summary of all the rides we have completed:
- Seoul to Busan – This is known formally as the “Cross-Country Cycling Road” and starts in Incheon in the north and ends in Busan in the south. It is 633km long.The route follows rivers except for a mountain pass in the middle.The mountain pass is 539m high, so it’s not too challenging.
- Jeju Island – Culturally, this is Korea’s version of Hawaii and is known as the “Jeju Fantasy Bicycle Path”.We did this after completing Seoul to Busan on our first trip.It is 234km long and loops around the outside of the island.
- Western Paths – These paths take you along two rivers in the south of the country as well as a path joining up the west coast back to the Seoul to Busan cycleway.They consist of 527km of cycleway, are mostly flat and take you into more scenic remote paths of the country.
- Gusan Sea Wall – We discovered this ourselves as this is not part of the official system.If you look on Google Maps there is a road starting in Gusan going south into a number of islands.The road has a path next to it as well as a road that is blocked off by vehicle traffic you can cycle along.The entire section is separated.
- East Coast Route – This route runs along the east coast up to the border of North Korea.The route is mainly on local streets and is the least bicycle path-friendly of all the routes.Officially, it is 353km long, but there are unofficially parts of the road further south that are not well developed.We started our journey in Pohang as we wanted to visit the set of a K-Drama (Home Town Cha Cha Cha) before proceeding on the route.
- Bukhan River Route—This route goes from Chuncheon back to Seoul. You can get to the start of this route by train, but you need to be careful of restrictions when using trains with bicycles. We did this by cycling from the top of East Coast (I can’t recommend this—it was messy).
This: https://www.bike.go.kr/eng/content.do?key=2009110747335 is the Korean official website which shows the entire network. If you click on “KOREAN” at the top of the screen and translate to English, you can click on “Bike Path Map” and see more detailed information that is not on the English version (here is the direct link to map: https://www.bike.go.kr/map/roadMap.do?roadSn=1&roadType=1&xp=37.570595&yp=126.699981&key=2008148358544&zm=12 )
This https://www.koreabybike.com/ has an excellent guide for all official routes. Subscribing to this site is a good investment as it has lots of specific information regarding logistics covered in more detail.
Reason 3: Certification
Korea has a certification system for the completion of tours within the country. To use the certification system, you must purchase a ‘Bicycle Passport’ (here: https://goo.gl/maps/Dr2W3QyfEi62 , assuming you start at Incheon). Along the route, you will find some red telephone boxes to stamp your passport. When you have completed a prescribed route, you can go to the certification centre, which will issue a certificate and medals (they also have a mobile app for this, but the last time I tried, it was locked to Korea)
When you finish a tour, you can go to the certification centre, have lovely silver and gold stickers on the back, and receive certificates and medals.
Certification for finishing Jeju island
Reason 4: Accommodation
Accommodation is plentiful in Korea. We generally found accommodation by riding to our destination. The one exception was Seoul on a Saturday. If you are arriving in Seoul over the weekend, it is best to book accommodation in advance.
We found that many accommodations were not listed. However, most are available on Naver Maps or Kakaomap (see Apps). More recently, many have been listed on Agoda.
Some of the accommodation was extraordinary (although we did have some challenging experiences). We stayed mainly at motels and pension houses. Other types of accommodation include guest houses, overnight saunas, hostels, and international hotels (which are costly).
Generally, breakfast is unavailable with accommodation, and accommodation is between $50 and $100 per night.
Reason 5: Bus transport of bicycles
Generally, you can take any intercity bus and put your bicycle under the bus at no extra cost. The bus needs to be long-distance to have a luggage compartment underneath.
This video shows this process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v97mfCWE2pA&t=74s
The bus driver has discretion over bike carriage. If there is insufficient space, the driver may refuse to let you in, and you will need to catch the next bus (they will refund you). We have never been denied access to a bus due to space.
Since we have a tandem, we typically disassemble it, as it freaked the bus conductor out the first time he saw it. For regular bikes, you can load them fully assembled.
Reason 6: Food
Eating in Korea is certainly an adventure. The food is different, but you can still get away with alternatives if you are not so adventurous.
We found a few significant differences when it came to eating food (apart from the cuisine):
1. Restaurants often close at 8:00 pm outside of big cities. Generally, you will not be able to get a meal if you don’t get there by 7:30 pm.
2. Each restaurant only sells a small number of dishes. This is quite good if you make sure you are early as you can see what other people are eating.
3. Ordering—This is a bit of a hurdle because, very often, your waiter will not be able to speak English. At one stage, we typed into the translator, ‘Choose something nice, please. ' At other times, we could translate the menu using Google Translate or just point to another table and say, ‘Can I have this, please?’ in Korean (see Languages).
4. If you’re stuck for food, 7-Eleven type stores generally have instant noodles, hot water, and a place to eat. They also are a good source of food that might be more familiar to you.
5. Our conventional idea of breakfast does not seem to work in Korea. Many cafes open at 10:00 a.m., mainly serving sweet bread or pre-prepared food. Option 4 above is always available.
Reason 7: Korean People
We consistently had experiences of the Korean people being friendly and exceedingly helpful. It was not unusual to have interactions where locals would hand us a drink or some other tasty treat when we met them on the ride.
On the first trip, we had problems with threads being stripped and held on our rack. The Baskin and Robbins owner in Yeoju (Dom, who also lived in NZ) helped take us to the bike store and bridge the language barrier to get it fixed.
English is not widely spoken outside major cities, and it made a big difference that we tried to learn some of the language.
Reason 8: Public Transport
Use the local maps apps (see Apps below) to find local transport, such as the metro and intercity buses. Transport options in Seoul consist of buses and the metro, which will take you anywhere you want. You never need a taxi.
Reason 9: Government Tourism Support
Since we started cycling in Korea the government has improved their support for tourism in the country.
See: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/
There is also an app:
See: https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/svc/contents/infoBscView.do?vcontsId=175128
The app allows you to text chat with the tourism office if you have any questions or problems. You can also call, but in our experience, communication was sometimes difficult.
Language
The Koreans use their own alphabet, known as Hangul. It is one of the simplest non-roman alphabets to learn and look at, as each block is a syllable, and the shapes within each block are letters (nothing like Chinese), which resemble the shape of your mouth when you make the sound. I would recommend that you learn to read the alphabet as it makes recognising place names, food and accommodation easier. It also helps you when you want to pronounce (which is easier than you think) something in Korean, as you learn the sounds simultaneously.
Here is an example using everyone’s favourite word:
“Bicycle” Hangul: ‘자전거’ Romanisation: ‘jajeonggo’ Pronounced: ‘jar-jong-gor’ (sort of)
(Note: Romanisations of Korean words are directly transcribed from Hangul letters. Don’t rely on these for pronunciation, as you can see from the example above).
I used https://www.duolingo.com/ to learn the alphabet. It will take around 5 hours to do this.
This video in particular, https://youtu.be/kwGrmSWfxFY (Top 10 Must-Know Korean Phrases for Tourists! | 한국언니 Korean Unnie), was super valuable.
The other resource you use is a translation app (we found Google Translate to work best). You can use the camera function on the translate app to translate signs and menus. It was helpful to have a few prepared phases on the app before going into a situation (make sure you know what ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are in Korean).
If you have never been to a country and want to communicate in a language you don’t know, it can be done!
Arriving in Seoul
If you catch a direct flight from Sydney, you will land at Incheon Airport. Korean Airlines, Asiana (owned by Korean Airlines), and Jetstar fly to Incheon. Unfortunately, Incheon Airport is on an island, and you can’t cycle along the main road leaving the island.
We caught a bus to the hotel (KAL Limousine). Several hotel bus routes from the airport go to downtown Seoul, about an hour away. Please note that bus companies have different luggage sizes and transport rules. On one of our trips, they refused to transport our bikes, and we had to go by taxi (expensive). The airport train has restrictions on bicycles. Last time we caught it, you needed a permit to carry the bike, which is messy.
We stayed at the Best Western Seoul Garden because we had good experiences with the brand, and it is also the first stop on the bus route. They were also happy to store all the stuff we did not need on the bike (e.g., the bike box, packing, and suite case). You can also take the train from the airport, but having luggage and a large box is not so convenient.
Apps
Google Maps does not work for directions in Korea (it does not have routing information). The Korean Naver Maps or Kakaomap are available from the mobile app store and through the web browser. The web browser versions do work with translation to some extent.
For accommodation, Agoda was the best choice for booking. Booking from Naver Maps has some challenges – see https://10mag.com/verify-naver-account-and-set-up-naver-pay-for-foreigners/ (good luck – might be worth the trouble!).
Resources
Information about routes: http://www.bike.go.kr/en
This site is excellent and has lots of information available in English. https://www.koreabybike.com/ It is well worth the small charge they want for access.
Join the ‘Seoul to Busan and Beyond’ Facebook group.
There seems to be a shortage of GPX files. This directory contains a set of GPX I created by hacking the maps found here on https://bike.go.kr/map/roadMap.do : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NMOWCsBy6ZIe75tVM3chr6SdJ2FF_7d_?usp=sharing