SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Stephen Bugno is a frequent visitor to Korea. An avid cyclist, he took the opportunity to ride across Korea. This is his report.
In the past couple of decades, South Korea has developed a set of long-distance cycling paths that have put the country on the global cycle-touring map. I set off on a 393-mile journey from Incheon (via Seoul) to Busan by bike to get a closer look at this country from a different perspective. It was beautiful, insightful, energizing, and delicious! Here’s what to know if you’re thinking about cycling in Korea.
Why Go to South Korea? Travel to South Korea does not have the tourism draw for Americans that China and Japan do, but that is changing. In the past decade, Korean culture has gone global, with K-Pop and K-Dramas along with Korean food becoming increasingly well-known. Although there’s no Great Wall to walk on here, there are plenty of great reasons to travel to South Korea, or the Republic of Korea, as it’s officially known.
No one would fault you for traveling to Seoul just for food alone. Add in some wellness tourism with spa treatments and Korean saunas along with the historic palaces and fantastic museums, and you’ve got a great itinerary. With several long-distance bicycle paths, cycling is also an excellent reason to go to Korea. With direct flights to Seoul from about 15 US cities, there’s hardly an excuse not to go.
Visiting family is the reason I return to Korea each year. My wife was born and raised in Seoul, and her whole family lives there. I’ve enjoyed exploring the country on numerous trips before and after I met her. I’ve taught English there, done multiday treks through the mountains, and expanded my culinary boundaries (fermented skate, anyone?). I’ve also done plenty of cycling.
Cycling Routes in Korea: South Korea has a few long-distance cycling routes. I completed the one from Incheon (in the northwest) to Busan (in the southeast). This is the Cross-Country Route. Most of the route follows dedicated cycling paths along four different rivers.
Another route, the East Coast Route, goes along the lesser-populated east coast, skirting the rocky shoreline and East Sea beaches. It takes you 219 miles south from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
To explore historic sites and quiet towns along shorter, disjointed routes, set your sights on the Western Routes. To navigate around Korea’s largest island, head to sub-tropical Jeju Island. Here, you’ll cycle past tangerine farms, fascinating geology, and stunning beaches, all while encircling the 6,000 ft Hallasan volcano rising from its center.
Cycle Touring Korea Day 1:
Riding the Cross-Country Route: The Cross-Country route clocks 393 miles (633 km), and I took six days to complete it. I set off alone but met a German cyclist the first night, and we decided to stick together for the remainder of the trip to Busan.
The Cross-Country Route is a series of dedicated cycling paths pieced together, occasionally using country roads to connect one to another. It follows the river much of the time. In a heavily urbanized country, these paths stay mainly in the countryside, skirting along the edges of cities. It is well signposted, but with various offshoot paths, it’s easy to veer off course, especially when the route signs are written in Korean. If you download GPX files and use them for navigation, it will help keep you from getting lost.
Korea is 70% mountains, but with the exception of one mountain pass, this route keeps mainly along the flats. It is scenic, sometimes passing along agriculture or through villages, towns, and small cities. Wherever there aren’t mountains or farms in Korea, there are cities. This country packs 51 million people into an area the size of Indiana, which has only 7 million people. Remarkably, thanks to the mountainous terrain, there is still a lot of undeveloped land.
Where to Stay, Eat, and Get Caffeinated – Planning Your Days: We did the ride in six days, averaging between 60-70 miles per day. But that only left a little time for exploring. I recommend pedaling at a more relaxed pace and taking a little time to discover places along the way. A highlight for me was the short diversion to Musimsa, a serene Buddhist temple perched on a steep river bank. Impossibly off-the-beaten-track, the hypnotic chanting lured us the final 100 yards up the hill.
There is sufficient lodging along the route, but I had a modest, self-imposed $40 per night budget cap on my accommodation for a single room at a hotel or guesthouse. Oddly enough, we stayed at a love motel one night, which was an interesting experience. These are places where the proprietor stays out of your way by design, and guests typically arrive and depart without any interaction.
We were cyclists, clearly in no need of privacy for our affair, but quite the opposite, needing to see someone in order to give us instructions on how exactly we could negotiate the price, check-in, pay, etc, in this love hotel.
If you have a bigger budget for accommodation, you’ll have more flexibility on the places you stay. In most situations, you could plot out your day’s course in the morning and book your hotel then. Or just wing it and find a place where you land at day’s end.
Eating along the way is definitely a highlight. We stopped for filling and nutritious meals every day; pork bar-b-que, ginseng chicken soup, dumplings, fried chicken, grilled eal, and bibimbap (mixed rice) were just some of the excellent meals we had along the way. These were supplemented by the energy bars we kept in our bike pouches and stops at coffee shops.
Coffee shops were the unexpected highlight of the journey, and simply calling them “coffee shops” would be a vast understatement. My traveling companion had a knack for plotting the most epic coffee shops en route. These multi-level establishments all had bountiful selections of savory and sweet baked goods as well as sweeping views. And they always came at the perfect time: a couple hours after lunch when we needed the caloric and caffeine boost.
When to go to Korea: Korea has four distinct seasons. I rode in late April, and it was an excellent time. Fall is also pretty. Summer isn’t bad, but the humidity can be unbearable in July and August, and these are typically the rainiest months as well. Most cyclists would best avoid winter in most of the country.
Rental bikes: If you can’t bring your own bicycle to Korea, there is at least one bike shop in Seoul that rents suitable bicycles for cross-country trips. They will even let you return it in Busan for an extra fee. Road, hybrid, and gravel bikes would be appropriate for the cross-country routes since it’s entirely paved.
Videos of Stephen’s ride across South Korea:
Watch the whole ride in a series of YouTube Videos on Stephen’s YouTube Channel, Cycling Alaska.
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