West coast · Yeongjongdo, Incheon
을왕리해수욕장
Thirty minutes from Incheon Airport — the easiest beach in Korea to reach on a layover.
Eurwangni is on Yeongjong island, the same island as Incheon Airport, which puts it about half an hour from the terminal by bus or taxi.
It faces west, so it is a sunset beach, and the seafood restaurants behind the sand are the other reason people make the trip out from Seoul.
What else is here
Eurwangni is on the same island as Incheon airport, about twenty minutes from the terminals, which makes it the only beach in Korea you can realistically visit between flights.
20 minutes from the terminal
Eurwangni is on Yeongjongdo, the airport island, so there is no bridge or motorway between you and it — a taxi takes under twenty minutes from Terminal 1, and airport buses run there for a couple of thousand won. With a six-hour layover it is comfortably doable.
Getting there: Taxi or local bus from Incheon Airport T1/T2.
The west-facing advantage
The beach faces west into open water, and the sunset here is the reason Seoul residents drive out on summer evenings. The rocks at the northern end are the spot.
Next door, and quieter
A larger, newer beach a few minutes north with a marina. Less crowded than Eurwangni on a summer weekend.
A tidal causeway
South of the airport, Silmido is joined to Muuido by a sand bar that appears at low tide and vanishes at high. Check the tide table; people get caught out here every year.
Practical
Eurwangni is not a great beach by Korean standards. It is short, it gets crowded, and at low tide the water retreats a long way across flats. Judged on its own it would not make a list like this.
What makes it worth knowing about is where it is. Incheon airport is on Yeongjongdo, and so is Eurwangni — twenty minutes by taxi, no bridge to cross, no traffic to fight. If you land early, or have a long connection, or have an evening to kill before a morning flight, you can be in the sea and back with time to spare.
There is a strip of raw-fish restaurants, clam-grill places and cafés immediately behind the sand, and several of them stay open late for exactly this trade.
Daecheon Beach
The mud festival beach — and the west coast's biggest stretch of sand.
Kkotji Beach
Two rocks in the surf that the sun sets between — the classic west-coast sunset.
Sinduri Beach & Dunes
The largest coastal sand dunes in Korea, protected behind the beach.