Incheon
Incheon is the night before an early flight, and the best use of it is the Chinatown where jjajangmyeon was invented and Korea's best Chinese food still is. Ten free transit tours run from the airport.
Incheon in a nutshell
Incheon: what to expect
Read against 51,000+ planned stops in South Korea on Stippl, this is how Incheon sits.
Incheon opened as a treaty port in 1883 and everything old in it dates from that. Korea's only official Chinatown was settled by Shandong merchants afterwards, and jjajangmyeon was invented there around 1905 in a restaurant that now runs a museum about the dish. Jayu Park was the country's first Western-style park, four treaty-port banks stand within two hundred metres of each other, and Wolmido has seafood, a promenade and a fairground at the harbour mouth.
Two thirds of the trips that carry Incheon write it first or last, and it is written last more often. No mainland Korean city other than the capital comes close, and the two ends are different stops: written first, a quarter of Incheon stops carry no night at all, while written last, almost all of them are exactly one. It is also the one Korean destination that substitutes for Seoul rather than adding to it.
One night, and take it before an early flight rather than as a stay. Half of all stays here are exactly one and one stop in seven carries none, which is the honest shape of the place. The airport is on Yeongjong Island rather than in the city and runs free transit tours if you are only passing. The old port is thirty to forty minutes away, which makes a long layover into something worth doing.
Plan Incheon in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the appWho Incheon is for
Anyone with an early flight out
Incheon is measurably for this: more stops here close a trip than open one, and most people give it 1 night.
Anyone on a long layover
The airport runs ten free transit tours, and the old port is 30 to 40 minutes away.
Fans of Korean-Chinese food
Incheon is where Chinese food became Korean, and the Chinatown restaurants are where jjajangmyeon was born.
History travellers
The treaty port and the 1950 landing are both here, and both have museums that take them seriously.
Families
Wolmido's fairground and Songdo's park are both easy afternoons, and neither needs more than a subway ride.
Maybe not for you: anyone planning to base here or stay, since half of all stays are exactly one night and a good share are none at all; Incheon is where a trip ends, not where it happens.
The best time to visit Incheon
Spring
April and May
Blossom, the mudflats at their best and the blue crab in the fish market: one of the two clean windows, as it is across Korea. Chinatown and the open port are at their most walkable.
Summer
June to August
The monsoon, with August the wettest month and the Pentaport Rock Festival falling in it at Songdo. Hot, humid and the islands the summer plan.
Autumn
October and November
Clear and dry, the second clean window, with the crab back in the market and the Wolmido waterfront at its best. The best months to add the city to a Seoul stay.
Winter
December to February
Cold and windy off the Yellow Sea, colder in feel than Seoul, with the port and Chinatown quiet and the jjajangmyeon restaurants warm. The cheapest months.
- Incheon is planned about 97 days ahead on Stippl, and 11.45% of plans are made inside a fortnight, the highest share in Korea we cover. For most it is the airport and a first or last night; the city has the hotels for that in every month.
- Blue crab at the fish market is a spring and an autumn thing. The Soraepogo market sells it by the kilo when the boats bring it in, from April to June and again from September to November; the summer crab is frozen and the winter market is quiet.
- The Pentaport Rock Festival in August is Korea's biggest, and August is the wettest month. Three days at Songdo with the big international acts; the hotels in Songdo fill and the mud is part of the experience.
- The wind off the Yellow Sea makes Incheon's winter colder than Seoul's. The temperature reads the same and the feel does not; the mudflats and the islands are for spring and autumn, and a winter visit is Chinatown, the port museum and a bowl of jjajangmyeon.
Add your Incheon dates and we'll flag the weather
Stippl shows the season, crowds and prices for every stop on your route.
Describe your trip, get a Incheon itinerary in seconds
Everything in this guide is already in Stippl. Tell the planner how long you have and what you like: it builds the route, the days and the travel times, and you edit whatever you want.
Things to do in Incheon
Photo by Ronald Langeveld via UnsplashChinatown
Walk Korea's only official Chinatown, settled after 1883, and eat the best Chinese food in the country: jjajangmyeon at the restaurant that invented it, about €6. The museum about the one dish is upstairs.
Jayu Park
Climb to Korea's first Western-style park, laid out in 1888, with the MacArthur statue at the top and the harbour below, free. Cherry blossom in April, and ten minutes from Chinatown.
The Open Port street
Walk the two hundred metres with four treaty-port banks, two of them now free museums, and the Hotel Daibutsu, Korea's first Western hotel, now a museum of arriving. An hour, on the way from Chinatown to the harbour.
Wolmido
Eat seafood on the promenade at the harbour mouth, ride the Sea Train for about €2 and take the fairground for what it is. Evenings, when the port lights come on.
The Incheon Landing memorial
Spend an hour at the memorial hall for the 15 September 1950 amphibious landing that reversed the Korean War, free. Closed Mondays.
Songdo Central Park
Walk the seawater canal through the city built on reclaimed mud, free, and take a boat on it for about €3. Dusk, when the towers light up.
The neighbourhoods of Incheon
Chinatown
Sloping streets, noodle houses
The sloping streets above the harbour: the noodle houses, the museum, the gates and the Fairy Tale Village behind, with a hanok hotel and guesthouses. For first visits and foodies.
Everything the old port has on foot, and the weekend crowds.
The Open Port
Treaty-port banks, museums
One street of treaty-port banks and warehouses, now museums and galleries, with a few boutique hotels in the old buildings. For history and for a quiet base by Chinatown.
The history from the door, and a quiet street after six.
Songdo
Reclaimed land, glass towers
Reclaimed land with glass towers, a seawater canal and very few people, and the international hotels. For families and for a modern base near the airport.
Order and the canal, and forty minutes to the old port.
Yeongjong Island
Airport island, beaches
The airport island: the hotels by the terminal, the beaches on the west side and nothing else. For an early flight and for budget travellers by the airport.
The terminal at the door, and thirty minutes to the city.
Wolmido
Harbour mouth, seafood, fairground
The old island at the harbour mouth: seafood, the promenade and the fairground, with plain hotels along the front. For families and for the promenade in the evening.
The seafood and the promenade, and a fairground's noise.
See every Incheon neighbourhood on one map
Save the areas you like and Stippl plots your days so you're not crossing the city twice.
Where to stay in Incheon
Stay on Yeongjong Island if you are here for a flight: the hotel cluster is fifteen minutes from the terminals, and that is the point of it. For the city, book a harbour-view hotel in Jung-gu, ten minutes from Chinatown on foot; Songdo suits neither. 49.90% of Incheon stops planned on Stippl are a single night, and that is the right booking.
Chinatown
A new-built hanok hotel from €120 and guesthouses in the sloping streets, €40 to €80.
The Open Port
A few boutique hotels in the treaty-port buildings, €70 to €150, quiet after the museums close.
Songdo
International conference hotels and serviced apartments among the towers, €100 to €200.
Yeongjong Island
Airport hotels from budget chains at €50 to a design hotel at €150 to €250, all with shuttles.
Wolmido
Plain hotels and motels along the promenade, €35 to €70, above the seafood restaurants.
What to eat in Incheon
Wheat noodles in a black bean sauce, invented here around 1905
The spicy seafood noodle soup that shares every Chinatown menu
Fried chicken in a sticky sweet-spicy glaze
A hollow, sweet, crisp flatbread, "bluff bread"
Steamed or in soup, in spring and autumn
Discover food spots in Stippl
Find restaurants and markets on the map, save them to your itinerary, works offline too.
Incheon customs and what not to do
The Fairy Tale Village is real
People live behind the murals and the friction has been written about; photograph the walls, not the windows, and keep the noise down in the lanes.
The MacArthur statue splits
He is not universally admired in Korea and the statue in Jayu Park has been the site of protests; treat the monument as a subject, not a backdrop.
Chinatown runs on lunch
The restaurants fill at noon with the jjajangmyeon crowd and thin out early in the evening; the museum about the dish is worth it after you have eaten it, not before.
Shoes off, as everywhere
In the hanok hotel and in the floor-seating restaurants; the Songdo side of the city is glass and chairs, and the old port is floors and slippers.
Do
- Eat jjajangmyeon in Chinatown before you look at the museum about it
- Take Line 1 to the end and walk out of Exit 1
- Stay on the airport island if the flight is early
- Photograph the murals, not the windows
Don't
- Try to combine Songdo and Chinatown in a short stop; they are forty minutes apart
- Plan Chinatown dinner around a tight connection
- Use the MacArthur statue as a selfie backdrop
- Expect the fish market to be central; it is at the Yeonan wharf
What a Incheon trip costs
Track what you actually spend
Set a daily budget per country and log expenses in any currency while you travel.
Fun facts about Incheon
Jjajangmyeon was invented in Incheon's Chinatown around 1905. The black-bean noodles began at the Gonghwachun restaurant, and Korea now has a national day for the dish on 14 April.
Korea's first Western park, hotel and public museum are all in Incheon. Jayu Park and the Daibutsu Hotel both opened in 1888, and the museum followed in 1946, all within the old treaty port.
Korea's first cup of coffee was poured in Incheon. It was served at the Daibutsu, the country's first Western hotel, in the 1880s, so the Open Port's café cluster is the oldest coffee ground in the country.
Songdo's Central Park canal is filled with seawater. The business district was built on land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea, and the canal through its park is pumped from the same sea.
Incheon is the only Korean destination that makes Seoul less likely. On Stippl about one Incheon trip in six carries no Seoul at all, because travellers file the airport city instead of the capital.
Incheon is written last more often than first. On Stippl it closes far more trips than it opens; the airport is the way out of Korea, not the way in.
Local tips for Incheon
Line 1 does the whole job
Seoul Station to Incheon Station is one train, about 67 minutes for about €1.50, and Chinatown is at the exit. Songdo shares the city's name and nothing else; budget forty minutes each way.
The airport is off-island
It sits on Yeongjong Island, thirty to forty minutes from the old port by road. Do not plan an evening in Chinatown around a tight connection; the AREX to Seoul is the safer base.
Free layover tours
The airport runs ten free transit tours for passengers with a qualifying layover, covering history, modern Seoul and shopping. Book at the transit tour desk after immigration, passport in hand.
Most people stay one night
49.90% of stops are a single night, the one before or after the flight. Half a day covers Chinatown, the Fairy Tale Village and Wolmido.
Chinatown is steep
The old port climbs, and the Fairy Tale Village is steps. The Wolmi Sea Train circles the island above the road on Fridays to Sundays and holidays, April to October, about €2.
Do not walk the flats
The tidal range here is among the largest in the world, which is why the mudflats appear and disappear. Stay on the promenade at Wolmido; the tide comes in faster than you walk.
Incheon questions, answered
As an airport, mostly. Incheon carries 2.04% of everything planned in South Korea on Stippl, and nearly all of that is the night before or after a flight. Put Seoul into Stippl for the actual sightseeing and keep Incheon for the arrival and the departure.
One night. 49.90% of Incheon stops planned on Stippl are a single night, and that is what the place is for: Chinatown, the Open Port district and an early flight out. It sits at the end of subway line 1 from Seoul, so a day trip works better than a stay.
On a long layover, yes, and 14.82% of Incheon stops planned on Stippl carry no night at all. The airport runs free transit tours of a few hours, and Chinatown is thirty to forty minutes away by train. With under five hours between flights, stay airside.
On Yeongjong Island, where the airport actually is, rather than in Incheon city. The hotels there are a short shuttle from the terminals and there are transit hotels inside them. The old port district is forty minutes away over the bridge, which is not what you want at four in the morning.
Easily. Subway line 1 runs all the way to Incheon station at the edge of Chinatown, about an hour with no change, on an ordinary transport card. Come for jjajangmyeon, the Open Port buildings and the steps up to Jayu Park, and be back in Seoul for dinner.
Only if a city built from nothing on reclaimed sea appeals as an idea. It is glass towers, very wide boulevards and a large central park, and it is genuinely strange to walk around. It sits forty minutes from everything else in Incheon, so treat it as a separate outing.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
Plan Incheon in Stippl
Day-by-day planning, stays and budget in one app, with every place from this guide already on the map.
Download the app