Gunsan travel info

Gunsan is a port town where the Geum River meets the Yellow Sea. It shipped out rice during the Japanese occupation and, spared heavy bombing in the Korean War, kept a lot of buildings from that era. A red-brick customs house, a former bank turned art museum and a temple with a Japanese-style roof all sit within a short walk of each other, so the old centre feels like an open-air exhibit.

Food has a long history here too. With a Chinese merchant community in the port, jjamppong simmers all over town, and a queue forms outside Lee Sung-dang, the bakery that opened in 1945, for its red-bean buns. A spread of soy-marinated crab with grilled flatfish covers a meal on its own. At dusk many people walk the old railway embankment at Gyeongam-dong. A drive out over the bridges to Seonyudo island shows a different side of the coast.

There is no direct KTX from Seoul. You take an ITX-Maum or Mugunghwa train from Yongsan or Yeongdeungpo, change at Iksan, or go by bus. The old centre around Jungang-ro and Jangmi-dong is walkable, but Seonyudo and the Saemangeum area need a bus or a car.

From Seoul (ITX)

From Jeonju, Iksan and nearby (BUS)

From the airport (AIR)