Since moving to Spain for the first time in 2018, I consider myself a train girlie. If I have the option between flying somewhere and taking the train, I’m choosing the train, even if it takes a little bit longer or costs a little bit more. And during our trip to South Korea, I had the chance to try out yet another high-speed rail line for the first time: KoRail (KTX) from Seoul to Busan.
South Korea actually has two different high-speed train companies, KoRail (KTX) and Super Rapid Train (SRT). I can’t say which one is “better,” but we decided to go with KTX because it was more convenient for us to depart Seoul from Seoul Station. SRT departs from Suseo Station, which was farther away. So it made our choice easier.
Anyway, here’s my KoRail review of what it was like to travel with KTX from Seoul to Busan.
Logistics
Booking our KoRail tickets was more confusing than I was expecting (as someone who has booked plenty of train tickets in plenty of countries.) When I searched “book KoRail tickets” multiple different websites came up, and some of them were broken. According to fellow travelers online, there are also a lot of scam sites, so it took some time to figure out that KoRail.com is the best site for booking.
Tickets go on sale exactly 30 days in advance. When you make your booking, you can select your seat for no extra cost — and it even tells you whether the seat will be facing forward or backwards. After you’ve selected your seat and are ready to check out, it will bring you to a screen that makes it look like you need to make an account.
You don’t *really* need to make an account, but you do need to enter your email and make up a PIN code in order to move forward with your purchase. Try to remember it, because if you need to make any changes to your trip, you can access your booking with this information.
Next, you’ll be able to pay with your credit card — luckily, there were no problems with using a foreign card at the time of booking. Then, you’ll receive an email confirmation. I believe I went into my KoRail booking and downloaded the QR code ticket, which I then printed out just to be safe. (That’s because, on their website, it says that “captured images and copied tickets are deemed invalid,” and I wasn’t sure if I’d have good enough cell service to pull up the QR code on my phone at the time of boarding.)
Our train from Seoul departed at 10:58 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Busan at 1:42 p.m. — though for some reason we arrived about 10 minutes late.
Convenience
If you’re traveling between Seoul and Busan, you shouldn’t have any problem booking a train on your preferred day and at your preferred time. Remember how I said tickets go on sale 30 days in advance? I had a calendar alert set for a month before so I could ensure that I got the tickets that we wanted, but that was very much NOT necessary, because there are about 70 trains between Seoul and Busan per day!
Seoul Station is pretty much in the middle of the city, so you shouldn’t have too hard of a time getting there from wherever you’re staying. While we had gotten a bit lost inside Tokyo Station while taking the Shinkansen, I don’t remember having any navigation problems in Seoul Station.
Still, it’s a good idea to plan to arrive at the station with plenty of time before your train’s departure. This is also why we chose kind of a “late” train — knowing that we needed to pack up, check out of our hotel, and take the metro to the station, we didn’t want to be in a huge rush that morning. We were a month into our trip at that point, and we were starting to get a bit worn out, lol.
Overall though, we found Seoul Station and the KoRail boarding process simple and convenient.
Security
There was no security checkpoint at either station.
Experience
We arrived at Seoul Station and had no problems getting into the train platform. The signage was clear, so there was no confusion about where to go or whether we were getting on the right train. Despite having my printed tickets at the ready, I actually don’t even remember having to scan them at any point, so I guess they were just going with the honor system that day!
Passengers were allowed to board about 15-20 minutes before the scheduled departure time. This gave me plenty of time to take pictures of the train from every angle before finding my seat. Again, the train cars and seat numbers were clearly labeled, so it was easy to find our seats.
The interior was clean, comfortable, and pretty quiet. And one thing I really appreciated was that the train had WiFi onboard! So I was ready to get some work done during the nearly 3-hour journey… but unfortunately, the power outlet near my seat did not like my charger.
Despite the fact that South Korea uses very similar outlets to what we use in Europe, and I’d had no problem with any of the plugs elsewhere in the country so far, it kept falling out. And my computer is a senior citizen, so she doesn’t last long without a charge.
Oh well! I just went to sleep instead.
Value
We paid about $42 USD per person for our train tickets from Seoul to Busan, one-way. That seems to be pretty consistent as I’m poking around the KoRail website. I’m just now realizing, though, that it was only half the cost of traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto on the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan!
When comparing the idea of taking a sub-three-hour train from Seoul to Busan, to flying between the two cities which only takes an hour, I’m glad we went with the train. Just getting from Seoul Station out to Gimpo airport, where most flights to Busan depart, takes about 35 minutes on the metro — and then you have to deal with being there early, checking in, potentially paying for your bags, going through security, and everything.
It is true that flying is technically cheaper (right now I’m seeing tickets for about $24 USD per person) but it also comes with potentially having to pay for your carry-on bag. A carry-on bag was included on our KoRail ticket, so it probably evens out financially.
And in my mind, having the opportunity to take the train and see more of the country’s landscape is always going to win out over a flight. 🙂
Have you ever taken the train in South Korea or elsewhere? Would you try KoRail or go with the SRT? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
This site contains affiliate links. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you.
Leave a Reply