Jochiwon

Of Interest: Freight yard, downtown Jochiwon

Lodging: motels

Tourist office: none

Jochiwon is a little town that grew up around the convergence of the rail lines connecting Seoul and the rest of the country with the lines that connect Daejeon with Chungcheongbuk-do and the mountains of Gangwon-do. It is a typical Korean small town with a lot of lodging right next to the train station. Overall it feels like an industrialized area.

You can take buses that go out into the countryside and to Gongju from the bus stop across the street from the station.

Besides being on both the Seoul-Busan and Yongsan-Gwangju/Mokpo main lines, trains from here go up into North Chungcheong Province. The three stops that serve suburban Cheongju are from ten to twenty minutes away. Jecheon, where you can change to trains Gangwon and Gyeongsang Provinces, is a little more than an hour and a half away along an attractive route near many mountains. There is good hiking from some of the stations on this route.

If you are going toward some of the more urban parts of Korea, Seoul is about an hour and a half away while you can reach Daejeon in about thirty minutes. Go to Daejeon Station to transfer to the Busan KTX and to Seodaejeon Station to transfer to the southwest KTX. Saemaeul and Mugungwha trains to southern Korea are cheaper, but they are also slower.

The three stops that