Rail Cruise Haerang

Haerang is South Korea's only sleeper train, and it is not a way of getting anywhere. It leaves Seoul Station in the morning and comes back to it three days later, having been round the country: the guests spend each day off the train, on coaches and on foot, and each night the train moves them on while they sleep.

Korail built it in 2008 by rebuilding Mugunghwa coaches, the ordinary carriages of its slower trains, into cars of private rooms with their own showers, and added a dining car and an observation lounge. The name is pure Korean, for a train that travels the land with the sun. The first one left Seoul on 31 October 2008. Today it is sold by Korail Networks, the railway's travel company, and has been running again since 2024.

The price covers everything from the meeting point at Seoul Station to the return: the room, every meal, the coaches and the entry tickets. There are only 23 or 24 rooms on each of its two sets of carriages.

The national tour is the one the train was built for, and it makes a loop of the whole southern half of the peninsula. Guests meet at Seoul Station at eight in the morning, and the train leaves at about 08:40, picking up at Suwon and Seodaejeon on the way south.

Day one ends up on the south coast. The train reaches Namwon at about one o'clock, and the afternoon goes on the garden of Gwanghallu and the reed beds of Suncheon Bay. After dinner in Suncheon it leaves at about nine at night and runs east through the dark to Busan.

Day two starts at Bujeon station at seven in the morning, with breakfast looking out over Haeundae beach and a walk on Dongbaek Island. In the early afternoon the train carries on to Gyeongju, the old capital of Silla, for a tour of the city with a heritage guide, and leaves from Pohang at about nine to go north up the east coast overnight.

Day three begins at Jeongdongjin, the station on the beach, at about half past six, in time for the sunrise. The coaches take guests to Mureung Valley below Dutasan, and from Donghae the train climbs inland through the mountains to Taebaek. It leaves there at about two in the afternoon and is back at Seoul Station at about half past six.

On board

The carriages are painted dark blue with gold lines, and the name is written on their sides beside a phoenix. Two diesel locomotives in the same colours, 7382 and 7383, are kept for the train. There are two sets of carriages: Haerang 1 has suites and takes 54 guests, Haerang 2 has four-berth rooms instead and takes 72.

Every room has a key-card door and proper beds, and all but the four-berth rooms have their own shower. All the cabin windows are on the same side of the train, so no room has a better view than another. For the rest of the day there is the Sunrise dining car, open from six in the morning to midnight with snacks, drinks and a free wine party, and the Four Season lounge, with windows on both sides, where a live concert starts the first night and a quiz, the Haerang Golden Bell, fills the ride home.

Haerang runs on set dates, not every day. The national tour (3 days, 2 nights) leaves Seoul every Tuesday and Friday; the east tour and the west tour (2 days, 1 night each) leave on alternate Saturdays. All three start and finish at Seoul Station. The operator gives the times as approximate, and says they can move by about half an hour with the running of other trains.

National tour, October–November 2026

The east tour goes by Jecheon to the lake at Cheongpung and Danyang, then overnight to Gyeongju, back in Seoul at about 18:30. The west tour goes to Suncheon Bay, then overnight to Gwangju and the tree-lined roads of Damyang, back at about 18:00. From October 2026 the train no longer stops at Cheonan, while the platforms there are rebuilt.

A month's departures go on sale about five weeks before it begins, at 10:00 Korean time: November 2026 opened on 29 September.

As of October 2026. Itineraries and dates are on the Rail Cruise Haerang website (opens in a new tab).

Haerang is sold as a package, by the room, and only on its own website: not through Korail's ticket office, travel agents or booking sites. The price includes the room, meals, coaches and entry tickets. Prices below are the off-peak rate for the national tour, in won, for the whole room; the peak rate is about 5–8 % higher, and the two-day tours cost about a third less.

A 10 % deposit is due within 24 hours of booking. Cancelling six or more working days before departure costs nothing; after that the charge rises by a tenth a day, to half the day before and the whole fare on the day itself. A departure with fewer than ten rooms booked may be cancelled.

No rail pass covers Haerang. It is not a train ticket but a package tour, sold only on the Rail Cruise Haerang website, and the price already includes every train, coach, meal and entry ticket on the tour. The KORAIL PASS for foreign visitors is for Korail's scheduled trains and has nothing to buy here.

It does not help with getting to the start either: every tour begins and ends at Seoul Station, so a pass is only worth having for the rest of a trip round Korea.

Checked October 2026 against the operator's booking notice (opens in a new tab).

The tour stops long enough at each place for a visit, not for a stay. These three are near its stops and worth coming back for on your own.

On the tour, the train is the hotel: both nights are spent in your room aboard, and there is nothing else to book.

Guests meet at Seoul Station at eight in the morning, and the train is back there in the evening of the last day, so a night near the station before the tour is the easy way to start. There is no parking for the train's guests, and the operator suggests coming by public transport.

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