An interesting activity to do outside Seoul is to ride the Gangchon Rail Bike! Travellers can pedal along the old railroad tracks while taking in the beautiful scenery of the river and the outskirts of Seoul. This railway bike is also featured in popular South Korean variety show "Running Man"! Although there's another rail bike park closer to Seoul and Nami Island (which would make a great activity before or after Nami Island), the Gangchon Rail Bike Park is the bigger and longer route.
How to get to Gangchon Rail Bike Park?
The fastest way to get to Gangchon Rail Bike Park is to take the ITX Cheongchun Line (from Yongsan or Cheongyangni in Seoul) to Namchuncheon and change to the subway back to Gimyujeong Station. The Gangchon Rail Bike Park is located a 5 minute walk away from Gimyujeong Station.
For the ITX from Seoul, you can either take it from Yongsan or Cheongyangni Station. It is better to book your tickets online as the ITX Cheongchun trains are extremely popular among tourists who wish to head to Nami Island.
At the booking page, key in your departure time, departure station, and the arrival station.
For the departure station, you can key in Yongsan or Cheongyangni while the arrival station, key in Namchuncheon.
Then, from the dropdown menu, click ITX Cheongchun and the number of passengers required. On the next page, select the time of departure that you would like, and pay for the tickets.
On the day of your departure, head over to the ticket counter to exchange your printouts to the actual tickets!
Upon arrival at Namchuncheon, head over to the subway platform and get on the train to Gimyucheong Station. The train timings from Namchuncheon is quite infrequent, so do ensure that you quickly head to the platform to get the train, if not, it may mean that you'll have to wait about 20-30 minutes for the next train. If that is the case, you can always head out of Namchuncheon to grab a bite at the nearby stores before heading back up to take the train! (Do note that if you exit the station, you'll need to buy another ticket to take the subway)
At Gimyucheong Station, you'll be able to see the rail park and it is only a short 5 minute walk away!
How to get the Gangchon Rail Bike Park Tickets?
Do note that you should also book the rail bike tickets beforehand. Especially during weekends, the Koreans love heading to the countryside! There are the 2-seater bikes and the 4-seater bikes for your selection.
However, the booking process is quite tedious as the only way to book it is through the website and it is only available in Korean!
So you can either...
1. Use google chrome to book it, or
2. Book through Klook.com
* Do pay the extra 1000 won for the VR experience! Although it was quite a short VR game play, there was real pyrotechnics used in the tunnel and we really enjoyed it!
As we only decided to head to the rail bike park when we were in Seoul, we checked online for the available bikes the day before. We saw that they had about 10 bikes at the time slot we were heading to and decided to try our luck! Thankfully, we managed to get the tickets and there we go!
The route for the rail bike takes about 40 minutes of cycling and you will reach a rest point where there is a cafe that you can purchase some drinks, and a snack and souvenir store. Here is where you can also have a toilet break! Thereafter, you will take a scenic train ride all the way to the old Gangchon Station! From there, you can either ride the shuttle bus back to Gimyucheong Station or take a 15 minute walk to the new Gangchon Station.
We really enjoyed the rail bike experience with the beautiful scenery and the different themed tunnels. It will definitely be a memorable experience for both the young and the old! :)
This post is part of our South Korea Travel Series, read also our other blog posts on:
Seoul:
Jeju:
Busan:
%20With%20LOGO.jpeg)