Getting Around Korea: KTX, T-money and the Map Problem

The country is smaller than it looks, and the trains make it smaller

South Korea fits comfortably inside the scale of a single large region elsewhere, and the high-speed network compresses it further: the run from the capital in the north-west to the second city on the south-east coast takes roughly two and a half hours, and most of the major destinations sit within two hours of Seoul. The practical effect is that Korea can be travelled as a series of day trips from one or two bases rather than as a chain of one-night stops, which is a genuinely different and usually better trip shape.

The network is radial, and that is the thing to plan around. Lines run outward from Seoul rather than between the provinces, so a cross-country journey between two non-capital cities frequently routes back through the middle, and two places that look adjacent on a map can be awkward to connect directly. Check the actual routing rather than the distance before assuming a lateral hop is quick — this is the single most common itinerary mistake here, and the intercity buses below are usually the answer to it.

T-money: one card for nearly everything

A rechargeable transit card, bought and topped up at any convenience store, covers subway and bus networks in cities across the country, works in taxis, and can be spent in the convenience stores themselves. It is not a city card — the same one works nationally, which removes the usual business of acquiring a new ticketing system in each place. Buy one on arrival and stop thinking about fares.

The detail worth knowing is the transfer discount. Tapping out of one service and into another within a set window is treated as a continuation of the same journey rather than as a new fare, so a bus-then-subway trip can cost little more than either leg alone — provided you tap both on AND off, including on buses, where visitors routinely forget the exit tap and lose the discount. This is why locals combine modes so freely, and it makes the bus network genuinely usable rather than a fallback.

The buses go where the trains do not

The intercity and express bus network is the most underrated thing in Korean transport, and visitors overlook it because the trains are famous. Buses reach the smaller cities, the national parks and the coastal towns that the high-speed lines bypass entirely, they run frequently from dedicated terminals in every city, and for lateral journeys that would otherwise route back through Seoul they are usually both faster and simpler.

They are also more comfortable than the category suggests. Premium express services seat passengers three across rather than four, in wide reclining seats with generous pitch, which makes a two- or three-hour journey genuinely restful rather than endured. Terminals are separate from railway stations and are worth locating in advance, since larger cities have more than one and they serve different directions.

The map problem nobody warns you about

South Korea restricts the export of detailed mapping data, and the consequence for a visitor is concrete and immediate: the international mapping app most travellers arrive with does not provide usable walking or driving navigation inside the country. Transit directions between stations generally work, which is what misleads people — the app looks functional until the moment you ask it to walk you somewhere, and then it simply will not route you.

The fix is to install a domestic map application before you travel rather than discovering the problem on a street corner. Naver Map and Kakao Map are the two everyone uses; both offer English interfaces, both do walking, driving and transit routing properly, and both handle the address system, which is the other half of the problem — Korean addresses are not intuitive to search in a foreign app even when it does have the data. Download one, and set it up while you still have familiar wifi.

A related habit worth adopting: save the Korean-script name of anywhere you intend to go. Search results, taxi drivers and signage all work far better from the Korean name than from a transliteration, and a screenshot of it solves most communication difficulties before they start.

The two weeks the whole country moves

Korea has two major holiday periods in which effectively the entire population travels to family at the same time: the lunar new year in winter and the autumn harvest holiday. Both follow the lunar calendar and therefore fall on different dates each year, which is exactly why you should check them against your own travel dates rather than assuming — they are the single most trip-damaging surprise in Korean travel if you walk into them unaware.

During those windows, long-distance train and bus tickets sell out far in advance, motorway journeys can take several times their normal duration, and — the part that surprises visitors most — a great many restaurants, shops and small businesses simply close for several days while their owners travel. Major attractions and hotels generally stay open, so a trip is not ruined, but a plan built around independent restaurants and intercity movement will be. If your dates overlap, book long-distance transport as early as it is released and plan to stay put rather than move.

Taxis, flying and driving

Taxis are plentiful, metered, and inexpensive by the standards of comparable countries, which makes them a reasonable default for short hops and late nights rather than a luxury. App-based hailing is standard and removes the language friction of explaining a destination; failing that, the Korean-name screenshot habit above does the same job. Domestic flights are worth it in essentially one case — reaching Jeju, which the rail network cannot serve — while on the mainland the train beats flying once airport time is counted.

Driving is possible and rarely necessary. City traffic and parking are genuinely difficult, the public network reaches almost everything a visitor wants, and an international driving permit must be arranged before leaving home because it cannot be obtained after arrival. The exceptions are the countryside, the coastal roads and the national parks, where a car opens up ground that buses reach slowly — and Jeju, where the island's own transport situation is covered on its regional guide.