Getting Around Korea
South Korea · Practical guide
Getting around Korea
Airport transfers, transport cards, KTX and city travel — how the system works, and what to do first.
Researched, not visited — how we know this ↓1 · Buy a T-money card at an airport convenience store. Cash, Korean won.
2 · Take AREX into Seoul — express to Seoul Station, or all-stop for subway connections.
3 · Install Naver Map. Google Maps does not work properly in Korea.
KTX booking: korail.com (English, guest checkout with passport).
Checked 20 July 2026.
Start here
Arriving at Incheon for a first trip?
Three things, in this order.
Buy a T-money card at an airport convenience store
Works on subways, buses and most taxis, nationwide. Around ₩2,500–4,000 for the card, then load it with cash.
Take the AREX train into Seoul
Express runs non-stop to Seoul Station. The all-stop is priced like the subway, takes your T-money, and connects straight into the network.
Install Naver Map before you land
Google Maps does not work properly in Korea. This is the single most common mistake visitors make.
Where are you in the journey?
I've just landed at the airport
Buy a T-money card at a convenience store in arrivals, then choose between the AREX express, the AREX all-stop, or a limousine bus. See From the airport to the city.
I'm travelling between cities
KTX for speed, intercity bus for price and for places the train doesn't reach. Book KTX through Korail's English site. See Intercity travel.
I'm getting around inside one city
Tap in and out with your card, plan with Naver Map. Subway is straightforward, buses need a little more confidence. See Getting around a city.
How we know this
We have not travelled in South Korea. This page is built from official sources — VisitKorea, Korail, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, AREX and the card operators — rather than personal experience. Korean transport products change often, and several changed while we were writing. Every figure is dated and linked to its source.
From the airport to the city
Two rail services and a bus. They differ in what they cost and how many times they stop.
AREX Express
Runs non-stop between Incheon Airport and Seoul Station, with reserved seating and a premium fare. Buy at the counter, at the machines, or online in advance for slightly less.
AREX All-Stop
Calls at intermediate stations and is priced like an ordinary subway journey. Your T-money card works on it, and it connects directly into the Seoul subway network — often the better choice if your accommodation isn't near Seoul Station.
Limousine buses
Serve a wide spread of hotel districts. Worth considering if you have heavy luggage, or are staying somewhere the train doesn't reach conveniently.
We're not printing journey times. Published figures vary by source and by service pattern, and a time that's wrong by fifteen minutes is worse than no time at all when you're planning a connection. Check the official AREX site for current timetables and fares.
Arriving at Gimpo, Busan Gimhae or Jeju instead? Those are covered on the relevant city pages.
Transport cards
Four products, one obvious default. This is the only genuine decision on the page, so it's worth two minutes.
The short answer, by trip shape
Recommendations assume a first visit. Criteria and assumptions below.
T-money — the default
A stored-value card, not a pass: you load money and each journey deducts a fare. It works on subways, city buses, most taxis and some convenience stores, across the whole country. Cashbee and EZL work similarly and are broadly interchangeable.
- WhereAny convenience store — CU, GS25, 7-Eleven, Emart24, MiniStop — and station machines
- Card costAround ₩2,500–4,000. Character editions ₩5,000–10,000
- RefundableThe balance is. The card price isn't
- Top-upsFree of charge at convenience stores, up to a ₩500,000 balance
Climate Card — Seoul only, and read this carefully
A Seoul-area unlimited pass. The product a visitor wants is specifically the short-term tourist pass, in 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7-day options. The physical card is around ₩3,000 on top of the pass price.
Most travel sites haven't caught up with this. Seoul's 30-day Climate Card is being discontinued — final top-up 31 July 2026, usable until 29 August, formally ending 1 September 2026. It's being replaced for residents by Climate Card Plus, tied to the national K-Pass scheme. The short-term tourist passes are unaffected and continue unchanged. If you read elsewhere that "the Climate Card is ending", that refers to the monthly resident product, not the one you'd buy.
M-PASS
T-money's own unlimited pass for foreign visitors, covering subway, city buses and the Airport Railroad in the Seoul metropolitan area. Sold at Incheon and Jeju airports and at tourist information centres.
WOWPASS
A prepaid card for foreign visitors combining currency exchange, a Korean domestic payment card and a built-in T-money chip. It runs on the domestic payment network, so it's accepted in places that decline foreign Visa and Mastercard.
The WOWPASS trap. It carries two separate balances. Foreign currency you exchange goes into the shopping balance. The T-money transit balance is separate and must be topped up with Korean won cash. Travellers assume one top-up covers both, then find themselves stuck at a subway gate with a well-funded card.
What it costs to get this wrong
Very little, which is worth saying plainly. Buying the wrong card wastes the card fee — a few thousand won. You can hold more than one, and T-money stays useful even if you also buy a pass. This isn't a decision that deserves anxiety.
Which card, in four questions
Answer 1, then follow where it sends you. Question 4 is separate from the rest.
Question 1
Are you staying in Seoul for essentially the whole trip?
Question 2
Will you make many journeys per day, several days running?
Question 3
Is your trip 7 days or shorter?
Question 4 separate from the above
Do you also want a card to pay in shops, without carrying cash?
Intercity travel
KTX
Korea's high-speed rail — fast, frequent, and the default for the main corridors.
Booking. Use Korail's official English site. You don't need an account: guest checkout works, selecting "Foreigner" as ID type and entering your passport number exactly as printed. The desktop site is more reliable than mobile.
The KorailTalk app has an English interface, but you must set it on first launch under Settings → Language → English. It's poorly rated, and there are consistent reports of it failing at the payment screen with foreign cards. If it fails, use the website rather than assuming the booking is unavailable.
Seoul–Busan, the benchmark journey, runs roughly 2¼ to 2¾ hours at about ₩59,800 standard class.
The Korail Pass
A period pass for unlimited KTX travel. Adult Select Pass ranges from roughly ₩131,000 for two days to ₩275,000 for five.
Worth it when you're making several long journeys in a short window. A single Seoul–Busan return gets close to covering a two-day pass, so two or more intercity legs is roughly break-even. Not worth it for a trip based in one or two cities with occasional travel — which describes most first visits.
Intercity and express buses
Typically 30–40% cheaper than KTX, and they reach a great many places the train doesn't. Seoul–Busan by bus takes around four to five hours at roughly ₩28,000–34,000. Premium buses offer notably more comfortable seating.
Choose the train when speed matters. Choose the bus when price matters, when your destination has no station, or when you'd rather see the country pass than a tunnel wall.
Getting around a city — subway
Tap in with your card at the gate, tap out at the other end. Fares are distance-based, and transfers between subway and bus within a time window are discounted — which is why tapping out matters even when it feels unnecessary.
Seoul's system is extensive, signed in English and announced in English at major stations. Naver Map gives platform numbers and transfer walking times, which turns a large interchange from a puzzle into a sequence of instructions.
New, March 2026: Seoul Metro kiosks at major stations now accept international Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay for single-journey tickets and for recharging T-money and Climate Cards. That meaningfully reduces the old "you must carry won to top up" problem — though convenience-store top-ups still take cash only.
Busan, Daegu, Gwangju and Daejeon have their own systems. T-money works on all of them.
City buses
Buses cover far more ground than the subway and cost about the same. Two things make them harder for visitors: stop announcements are less consistently in English, and you must tap out on alighting to get your transfer discount.
Kakao Map is the stronger app for real-time bus positions; Naver Map is better for route planning. Between them you can see which bus, how far away it is, and which side of the road to wait on.
Taxis and Kakao T
Taxis in Korea are inexpensive by British standards and metered. Kakao T is the dominant hailing app — the practical equivalent of Uber, which has minimal presence here.
Kakao T lets you set a destination without speaking Korean, which solves the main difficulty of hailing on the street. Payment can be by registered card or in cash on arrival.
Essential apps
- Naver MapInstall before you fly. Best all-round mapping and transit app for foreign visitors — English interface, subway platform numbers, transfer walking times, real-time arrivals
- Kakao MapWorth having alongside Naver for real-time bus tracking
- Kakao TTaxis
- KorailTalkKTX booking, with the language caveat above
Why not Google Maps
Korea restricts the export of high-precision mapping data on national-security grounds — a legacy of the unresolved armistice. Because Google processes map data on servers outside Korea, it can't use the detailed domestic mapping Naver and Kakao rely on. In practice: incomplete or missing transit routing, and walking directions that end at a neighbourhood rather than a building.
This may be about to change. In February 2026 Korea conditionally approved Google's request to export map data — the first such approval in 19 years — subject to domestic processing of raw data, obscuring of military sites, and a dedicated representative in Korea. Full Google Maps navigation is expected mid-to-late 2026. Until it demonstrably works, Naver remains the recommendation.
Checklists
Before you fly
- Install Naver Map, and Kakao T if you expect to use taxis
Do this on home wifi rather than at the airport.
- Decide your card type
A provisional answer is enough — see the four questions above.
- Book KTX seats if your intercity dates are fixed
Only necessary in busy periods. Otherwise leave it.
On arrival, in this order
- Buy a T-money card at an arrivals convenience store
- Load it with cash — Korean won, at the counter
Enough for a few days. Topping up later is easy.
- Choose your route into the city
AREX express, AREX all-stop, or limousine bus.
- Tap in — then remember to tap out
Including on buses. It's what preserves your transfer discount.
If something goes wrong
If this happens · minor
"Google Maps sent me to the wrong place"
Expected behaviour rather than user error — see above. Install Naver Map and re-plan. For walking directions to a specific building, Naver's building-level search is the fix.
If this happens · minor
"My card was declined topping up at the convenience store"
Convenience-store top-ups take Korean won cash only. Since March 2026, Seoul Metro kiosks at major stations accept international cards — use one of those, or withdraw cash first.
If this happens · minor, but it costs you
"I tapped in but not out"
You lose the transfer discount, and some systems charge a penalty fare. Tap out every time, including on buses.
If this happens · minor
"KorailTalk crashed when I tried to pay"
A known and widely reported problem with foreign cards. Book on the Korail website instead — guest checkout with your passport number works.
If this happens · minor, and by design
"I bought a Climate Card and it doesn't work outside Seoul"
The Climate Card is a Seoul-area product. Keep a T-money card for travel beyond the city — the two coexist happily.
Check this yourself
Checked 20 July 2026 · next review 18 October 2026 · Climate Card transition completes 1 September 2026
- VisitKorea — Transportation — cards and general transport
- Korail — official English site — KTX booking and the Korail Pass
- AREX — airport rail timetables and fares
- Seoul Metropolitan Government — Climate Card — pass tiers and status
Fares change. Treat every figure here as dated rather than current.
Help us keep this current
Fares, cards and apps in Korea change faster than we can travel. If you've been through recently, you know things we don't — and a two-line comment is more useful to the next reader than another month of our desk research.
Specifically, we'd like to know:
- Did Kakao T accept your foreign card, and did it want a Korean phone number? we couldn't verify this
- Is there an under-18 registration step for T-money, or does that only apply to youth fares? we couldn't verify this
- Has Google Maps navigation started working properly for you in Korea?
- Were the fares here close to what you actually paid — KTX, buses, top-ups?
- Anything about Incheon arrivals that would have helped: where the ticket machines are, how clear the signage is, whether the convenience store was easy to find.
Leave a comment below, or tell us directly if you'd rather not post publicly. We update the page and change the "checked" date when we act on something. If you'd like credit, say so and we'll add it.