Korea by Bike
How do you want to experience Korea?
- By car? No parking.
- By train? Too limiting.
- By bike? Now we’re talking.
Bikes let you experience the country at your own pace. Watch streams become rivers. Follow the coast. Climb when you feel like earning dinner.
South Korea offers a rare opportunity for touring. Fifty million people live in a nation about the size of Indiana, and local and national agencies have built bike paths that run across the country.
How much bike path? Thousands of kilometers. North, south, east, west. Looking for an afternoon ride? How about a week-long tour? Korea by Bike will help you choose a route and handle the details.
Let’s pedal on.
Guides to Korea’s certification bike paths, including cross-country rides, coastal routes, and island loops.
Bike Passport? Red stamp booths? A plain-English guide to Korea’s countrywide Bike Certification System.
Where to sleep. How to get around with a bike. What to eat. The practical stuff that makes a tour go smoothly.
Korea has bike paths in most regions. Eleven long-distance routes form the core of the country’s Bike Certification network. These routes cross the peninsula, climb a few mountain passes, and follow rivers and coastlines. Along the way, red stamp booths let riders collect stamps in a Bike Passport and earn completion certificates.
Korea by Bike profiles these routes with ride-throughs, major highlights, how-to-get-there info for start points, and links to detailed city-to-city guides.
Circle Jeju Island and ride a handful of other popular routes outside the main network.
Korea turns long-distance cycling into a simple game: a country-wide stamp hunt.
- Step 1: Buy a Bike Passport.
- Step 2: Find the red stamp booths along the bike paths.
- Step 3: Stamp your passport.
Collect every stamp on a route and you can claim a completion certificate. Finish a full course and you can purchase a medal.
How the certification system works, plus how to buy and use a Bike Passport.
A complete list of the certification centers (red stamp booths) on each route.
How to use Korea’s mapping services and view bike-path maps.
How to use the Bike Passport app.
Tips covers the practical info that makes a tour work: where to sleep, how to move your bike around the country, what to eat, and what to expect from the weather. Use it to plan your days and solve problems as they come up.
Rent, pack, and set up your bike for touring.
How to reach Korea’s bike paths by train, bus, subway, and airport.
Where to sleep while cycling in Korea.
Common Korean meals and easy backup options.
What riding looks like across Korea’s four seasons.
Traffic, bike paths, etiquette, and basic precautions.
Quick notes on language and day-to-day norms that come up on tour.