spreadyourwingsandflyy

Hmmmm it’s been awhile since being in Korea, but I’ll share this here since I always give these tips to my friends regarding KOrail 🙂

So during my 5 weeks in Korea for Summer School in 2018, I took a short weekend trip to Busan over one of the weekends since some of my other friends were attending summer school there~

Combining my friends’ and my own experience with KORail, these are some of the tips that I can give to those who are new to KORail 😀

KR Pass Number

Okay so KR Passes are for international tourists traveling in Korea and covers the railroad services by KORail – so that means the KTX (high speed train) is included too!

Tip #1:Always note down your KR Pass number (like, even the very moment it appears, take a screenshot or something lol). It’s key to everything. But somehow they don’t send you an email on it after you’ve bought it online (or at least, they didn’t send anything to me)

So what happened to me was that I had accidentally closed my tab while in the midst of purchasing my KOrail Youth pass (I managed to buy it one day before the Youth pass was phased out), so I didn’t manage to get a screenshot or save a PDF of the page that had my KR pass number Couldn’t restore my tab, no email, nothing (aaaaand I was in the middle of C++ class so imagine the panikkkk I had😬).

So if you ever encounter such a problem (I really hope you don’t though), here’s what I did:
Went to Seoul Station’s Ticket Counter and was referred to their Information Counter. This really nice young man patiently tried his best to trace through the only other possible way – my credit card number. And after about 10 minutes he managed to find a trace and match my KR pass number to me (YAYYYYY!!!!!)

Ticket/Seat Reservation

You can reserve tickets online with your KR Pass number, or in person at the ticketing counter at major stations.

If you’re reserving them online, you won’t really get to choose your seats – but here’s a trick: every time you refresh the reservation page, different seats will be offered to you! However, if you’re like me, who can’t just sit at any seat because of my motion sickness problem (instantly nauseous if I face backwards while travelling in a vehicle), then your next best option is to head to the physical Ticket Counter (I went directly to the one at Seoul Station), inform them about your destination and date of travel (and the preferred time or train number if you have one) and you can tell them that you would like to have a forward-facing seat! 😀 So I requested for a forward-facing window seat and it worked! Hehehehe. If you had reserved a seat before, it should be possible for them to remove the reservation and re-reserve the (new and preferred) seat for you.

Purchasing Tickets

Tip #2: it’s best not to purchase train tickets with payment made purely in cash if you’re buying them in person at the station. In the event that you lose your train ticket (printed on a simple receipt paper – which means it might be mixed up with normal receipts if not kept properly) ((speaking from my friends’ experience 😬)) you won’t be able to have the ticket reissued since there’s no way to trace/prove that it’s yours (my friends ended up needing to buy new tickets). But if you really need to buy them in person and make payment by cash, the next best alternative is to take a photo of your ticket in case anything happens. If you are getting your ticket in person but making payment by card or through your KR Pass, then that should be fine – more likely that it’ll be traceable 😉

Flexi or Consecutive Passes

The Youth Pass and 1 Day pass have been abolished since 17 July 2018. I was very fortunate to have found out about the impending abolishment a day before it happened so I could still purchase my KR Youth Pass at ₩81,000.

But otherwise, Flexi and Consecutive passes comes in 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 day passes 🙂 Do take note of the group discounts available! You can save about ₩10,000 person, for group travelers of 2-5 pax!

Seoul to Busan / Busan to Seoul

(Aka TRAIN TO BUSAN 😛 and back)

A one way ticket on the KTX between Seoul and Busan is worth about ₩49,000 to ₩54,000 (prices varies at different timings). The KTX ride is about 2.5 hours long and will stop at certain stations along the way.

Another option will be the Mugunghwa train which takes about 5 to 6 hours between Seoul and Busan but costs about half the price of the KTX ticket.

Aaaaand finally on a very random side-note: Self-service printing services available at Seoul Station next to the information counter. But do take note though – the machines are only in Korean and payment must be done by credit card (i.e. you cannot use T-money).

* info accurate as at July 2018