The KTX Train from Seoul to Busan: A Bullet Train Review

The KTX from Seoul to Busan takes 2 hours and 42 minutes. There is no airport security. You walk onto the platform, find your car, and take your seat. If you booked in advance, that seat has an assigned window. If you booked well, that window is on the right side of the train.

The right side matters because of what happens about 40 minutes south of Seoul, around Suwon. The train breaks out of the outer suburbs into a corridor of rice paddies and low hills, and for around 20 minutes the view runs continuous. Green in summer, silver in autumn once the paddies are flooded for the rice harvest, brown in winter. This is the photograph. Every guidebook that describes the KTX shows a version of this stretch. Sitting on the right means you see it without leaning across another passenger.

The other thing worth planning before you board is lunch. Seoul Station's basement level, accessible from the concourse before you go through the ticket gates, has a food hall with a section dedicated to train bentos. The best of them is Domosan's version. Ours had braised tofu, marinated mackerel, pickled vegetables, a small salad, and rice. It came in a wooden box tied with paper twine. It was the best food we ate on any moving vehicle, anywhere, and it cost less than a supermarket sandwich.

The KTX itself is comfortable in a way that Western high-speed trains often aren't. Seats are wide, recline properly, and have working power outlets. The luggage racks accommodate real suitcases, not just cabin bags. Wifi runs the length of the journey. There is a quiet car if you book into it. The vestibules between cars are for phone calls, so the seating areas stay conversational-volume even when the train is full.

Compared to flying between Gimpo and Gimhae, the KTX wins on almost every dimension that matters. City centre to city centre, it is faster once you count airport transit, security, boarding, and taxi at the other end. It is less crowded because it runs frequently, so you don't need to book weeks ahead. It is more comfortable because the seats are bigger and the journey passes without pressurised cabins or turbulence. And the experience of the ride itself, the rice paddies and the bento box and the smooth acceleration through the countryside, is a piece of the trip rather than a gap between the places you actually wanted to be.

Book the right side. Buy the bento.