How to Get to Korean Ski Resorts Without a Korean Phone Number: Foreigner Booking Sites for When Korean-Language Shuttle Sites Reject Foreign Cards, Plus the KTX Jinbu Station Route (2026-27 Season)

The first place foreigners heading to a Korean ski resort get stuck is the shuttle bus booking screen. The shuttle page on Mona Yongpyong's Korean-language site lists the operator as Daewon Tour (Korean name 경기대원고속관광, English name KD TOUR) and sends you to an outside booking site rather than the resort's own, and that booking site states: 'Cards issued overseas cannot be used.' The ticket arrives as a mobile ticket by text message to the phone number you entered when booking, so without a Korean card and a Korean number you get stuck at both steps: paying and receiving the ticket.

That doesn't mean foreigners can't ride the shuttles. Yongpyong and Vivaldi Park have their own English booking sites for foreigners, and for Alpensia, High1, and Phoenix there's a booking screen that sells, in English, the routes of the same operator (Daewon Tour) that runs their Korean-language booking sites. Elysian Gangchon's Seoul-area shuttle took no bookings at all in the 2025-26 season (whether it runs in 2026-27 hasn't been confirmed yet). If the shuttles don't work for you, you can take the KTX to Jinbu (Odaesan) Station and switch to a resort shuttle or a taxi to reach Yongpyong or Alpensia.

Most 2026-27 season figures aren't out yet. As of 2026-10-02, the only thing confirmed as a 2026-27 figure is the shuttle operating periods posted by the foreigner booking sites (Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, High1), so every fare and timetable below is labeled with whether it's a 2025-26 season figure or a figure currently posted without a season label.

Most Seoul-Area Ski Shuttles Are Sold by Bus Companies and Travel Agencies, Not the Resorts

Even if a resort's official page has a 'shuttle booking' button, the resort isn't the one selling the tickets. Mona Yongpyong lists Daewon Tour (inquiries 02-2201-7710) as the operator of its Seoul-area shuttle, and sends bookings not to the resort site but to Daewon Tour's booking site (skibus.purplebus.co.kr/Yp/). High1's official notice for the 2025-26 winter season says its ski buses are not operated by High1 directly but by regional operators that have signed operating agreements, and that season passes and regular tickets are bought separately from travel agencies in each region. The operator for Seoul and Gyeonggi is Daewon Tour. The Sono Vivaldi Park shuttle is run by Daemyung Tour.

Koreans can just press the resort's button and use the Korean-language booking site that comes up, but this is where foreigners hit a fork in the road. Among the official resort pages we checked, the only one that links to a foreigner booking site is Mona Yongpyong's English page. On Sono Vivaldi Park's 'Directions' page, as of 2026-09-28, the foreigner shuttle booking button is not visible on screen. Type the foreigner booking site's address (vivabus.net) directly into your browser's address bar.

Shuttle booking sites by resort (based on the 2025-26 season, to be updated when 2026-27 is announced)

The English booking sites in the Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1 rows are booking screens where Grace Travel, which runs the Yongpyong foreigner booking site, sells operator Daewon Tour's routes in English, one site per resort. Click 'Go to KDTOUR' in the Yongpyong foreigner booking site's menu and you'll find these booking sites gathered on one screen. k-ski.rideus.net on the shuttle platform Rideus (run by Ground K Co., Ltd.) also sells the same routes, but as of 2026-10-02 its home page still shows the 2025/26 season label. Neither is a booking site that the resorts' official pages link to.

Find your resort in the table, and if you don't have a Korean card or a Korean number, go straight to the address in the 'English booking site for foreigners' column. That said, we couldn't confirm all the way to the payment step whether these English booking sites accept overseas cards (see below).

If the Korean-Language Booking Site Blocks Your Overseas Card, Go to the Foreigner Booking Site

The Q&A on Daewon Tour's Yongpyong shuttle booking site says online payment is accepted only by credit card (including debit cards and KakaoPay/KakaoPay Money) and real-time bank transfer, and adds: 'Cards issued overseas cannot be used.' It doesn't take bank deposits to a virtual account either. The Alpensia and Phoenix booking pages on the same Daewon Tour system carry the same sentence.

Even if you get past payment, there's still the question of where the ticket goes. Non-member booking works by entering your name and contact details and paying, and the ticket is a mobile ticket sent by text message to your phone after the booking is complete. You also look up your booking with your name and mobile number. The site says it doesn't verify your number by text when you book, but since the ticket is sent only to that number, without a Korean number there's nowhere for it to arrive.

Payment isn't the only condition that trips up foreigners.

• The Incheon Airport route is 'for Korean nationals only.' The booking button says, 'This booking is for Korean nationals only; foreigners, please contact us below,' and a separate contact for foreigners is provided: phone +82-2-335-5889, Line +82-10-9388-5889, email help@tourtokorea.com. The Alpensia booking page says the same.
• Child fares require a Korean health insurance card. For children (from age 4 through elementary school), the rule is 'health insurance card required; adult fare applies if not presented,' so traveling families without a Korean health insurance card may end up paying adult fares. The Yongpyong foreigner booking site treats children under 13 as children and asks you to show a passport (or a copy).
• If you board without a booking, bank transfer is the rule. You can ride only when seats are left as of the transfer point (the assembly point, such as Sports Complex Station), and payment is in principle accepted only by bank transfer, so credit cards and cash may be refused. Buses in time slots with no bookings at all don't run.

If you're a resident with a Korean card and a Korean number, you can use this booking site as is. Non-member regular fares are posted without any season label: adults 18,000 KRW one way and 34,000 KRW round trip (22,000 KRW one way on site), children 14,000 KRW one way and 26,000 KRW round trip (18,000 KRW one way on site). The round-trip fare applies only when the trip to the resort and the trip home are within 5 days of each other.

Cancellation deadlines differ by season, so be sure to check them.

• Current page (2026-09-28): The cancellation policy only shows the rules for outside the ski season (labeled 'regular season' on the site). For both trips to the resort and trips home, the deadline is 13:00 two days before the bus date, and after that there are no refunds.
• Last ski season's (2025-26) rules: For trips to the resort, morning buses were 17:00 the day before, and afternoon and night buses were 4 hours before departure on the same day; trips home were 4 hours before use; and the Incheon Airport route was 17:00 the day before. The winter rules for trips to the resort and home have been taken down from the current page along with last winter's operating schedule (November 29 to closing day, March 22), and only the Incheon Airport route rules remain, on the Incheon Airport tab, alongside an operating period (December 8 to February 20) with no year given.
• Round-trip tickets and bus packages can't be partially canceled.

When 2026-27 rules are posted again, follow those. If your overseas card is declined at checkout, don't keep pressing the button on the same screen; move to the English booking site listed in the table above. Other services you can use without a Korean number are collected in Services You Can Sign Up For and Pay Without a Korean Phone Number.

What to Check When Booking on a Foreigner Booking Site (Transfers, Cancellation Deadlines, On-Site Sales)

The foreigner booking sites in the table above (the rideus.net screens for Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1, and vivabus.net for Vivaldi) and k-ski.rideus.net are all screens on the same Rideus platform. The Yongpyong foreigner booking site's sign-up form asks for your last name, first name, mobile number (an international number field where you choose your country), email, and password. In the mobile number field, choose your own country code and enter your number, then enter the verification code sent to your email. This sign-up page requires text message (SMS) verification only for Korean (+82) numbers, so it's built so that the sign-up step isn't blocked for overseas numbers either. However, we didn't actually sign up during this research, and we didn't separately check the sign-up pages of the booking sites other than Yongpyong's.

We couldn't confirm all the way to the payment step whether overseas cards go through. The k-ski home page mentions 'international transactions' in its payment information, but we don't know whether overseas card payment is actually switched on at each booking site. The login window has a 'non-member booking lookup' that checks your booking with a booking number sent by email, but we also couldn't confirm whether you can pay without signing up. If you get stuck at payment, send an email to help@tourtokorea.com (Grace Travel) for Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1, dmbus66@naver.com (Daemyung Tour) for Vivaldi, or ops@rideus.co.kr (Rideus) for k-ski.

Foreigner booking site comparison (Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1: currently posted figures without a season label; Vivaldi: 2025-26 season; to be updated when 2026-27 is announced)

On the Yongpyong foreigner booking site, children under 24 months ride free without a seat, and if you buy a round trip and cancel one leg, you get a refund minus the one-way fare. On the Vivaldi foreigner booking site, once 16:00 the day before has passed, there's no refund even if you don't board (including no-shows).

The shuttles on the Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1 foreigner booking sites pick up at several places in Seoul, but they're set up so that you transfer to the resort bus at Sports Complex Station in Jamsil (Line 2, Exit 6). The Yongpyong foreigner booking site tells you to show your voucher when you transfer. Vivaldi has two separate kinds of routes: one that goes via Hongdae, Dongdaemun, and Konkuk Univ., and one that departs from Sports Complex Station.

Departure times from Seoul and Incheon Airport (posted on the foreigner booking sites; Yongpyong without a season label, Vivaldi for the 2025-26 season; to be updated when 2026-27 is announced)

The Yongpyong foreigner booking site notes that some routes don't run depending on the date and time.

The foreigner booking sites state that their prices are foreigner-only fares that include a travel agency booking fee, so they may differ from the fares for Korean nationals. For Yongpyong, the Korean-language booking site currently posts 18,000 KRW one way, and the foreigner booking site 22,000 KRW. For Vivaldi, the foreigner booking site's 2025-26 Seoul one-way fare of 10,000 KRW is the same as the 10,000 KRW Seoul one-way fare the Korean-language booking site currently posts for its summer 2026 service (May 23 to September 13). If you don't know there are two booking sites, it's easy to mistake this difference for being ripped off.

Once you've booked, write down separately the departure time from your first stop, the transfer time at Sports Complex Station, and the cancellation deadline (Korea time). If you miss the bus at an earlier stop, the Yongpyong foreigner booking site says you can take other public transit to Sports Complex Station and gather there by 10 minutes before the Sports Complex Station departure time (06:20 or 10:00 in the table above).

For Yongpyong and Alpensia, Take the KTX to Jinbu (Odaesan) Station, Then a Shuttle or Taxi

If shuttle booking is blocked or the times don't fit, the train is the alternative. The KTX station that Mona Yongpyong and Pyeongchang Alpensia point you to is Jinbu (Odaesan) Station. It's a station on the KTX Gangneung Line (Gyeonggang Line) that opened on 2017-12-22, and Alpensia's official guide also says 'get off at Jinbu (Odaesan) Station.'

There's also a Pyeongchang Station on the same Gangneung Line, which makes it easy to mix them up. Pyeongchang Station is in Yongpyeong-myeon, Pyeongchang-gun, but despite its name it's more than 20km from Pyeongchang-eup, and the station the Yongpyong and Alpensia official guides point to is Jinbu. If you're going to Yongpyong or Alpensia, don't get off at Pyeongchang Station just because of its name. Phoenix Snow Park is the opposite: its official 'Directions' page points to KTX Pyeongchang Station (Gangneung Line, about 1 hour 30 minutes from Seoul). However, as of 2026-10-02 that page shows no shuttle from Pyeongchang Station to the resort. The English page's code still contains a free shuttle timetable linking Pyeongchang Station, Jangpyeong Terminal, and the resort, hidden from view, but it has no operating season on it, so until a way from the station to the resort is announced, plan on the shuttle described above (for foreigners, phoenix.rideus.net) for Phoenix as well.

Mona Yongpyong's KTX guide page doesn't list fares; it only shows Korail booking (letskorail.com), Korea Railroad Corporation at 1544-7788, and the shuttle and taxi from the station. Fares vary by train, seat, and discount, so look them up on a booking screen. We couldn't confirm whether every Gangneung Line train stops at Jinbu Station, so when you book, check that the train stops at Jinbu Station before choosing it. Which station in Seoul to board the Gangneung Line from is covered in How to Get from Seoul to Regional Cities, and how to book KTX without a Korean card is in How Foreigners Can Book KTX Tickets.

There used to be old information saying KTX ran directly from Incheon Airport to Jinbu Station, but it's not on the resort pages now, and we couldn't confirm any direct service. If you're heading straight from the airport, it's safer to take the Airport Railroad to Seoul Station and transfer to the KTX there. The difference between the Airport Railroad's Express and All-Stop trains is covered in AREX Express vs. All-Stop and How to Buy Tickets.

Jinbu (Odaesan) Station resort shuttles (posted as of 2026-09-28, winter timetable not yet posted)

Normally there are two round trips a day. Mona Yongpyong notes that 'times may change depending on KTX schedules.' Alpensia once increased service to 4 runs on weekdays and 6 on weekends during the 2023-24 winter peak season (2023-12-15 to 2024-02-29) (that's an old timetable that has since been taken down from the current page), but the 2026-27 winter timetable hasn't been posted yet. Don't plan on the assumption that service will increase this winter too.

Both resorts describe eligible riders as 'visiting (using) customers' and don't limit it to 'hotel guests.' But we couldn't confirm what day-trippers who only buy a lift ticket should show as proof. If you're on a day trip, have your lift ticket purchase screen or booking text message open and show it when you board, and if you're told it won't do, take a taxi from in front of the station (about 20 minutes).

If the shuttle doesn't fit, take a taxi. Mona Yongpyong's guide tells you to check the estimated taxi fare with 'Naver Map directions by car,' and lists call taxi numbers: Jinbu Taxi 033-335-0088, Hoenggye Taxi 033-335-5595, and Hoenggye Private Taxi 033-335-5960. Alpensia's page shows only the Jinbu Taxi number. All of these are Korean-language phone lines, so if that feels daunting, try calling one with a taxi app. If you can't get one, look for the taxi stand in front of the station, and if there are no taxis there, call the Jinbu Taxi number above (we couldn't confirm whether taxis are always waiting in front of the station). Just show the driver 'Mona Yongpyong Bliss Hill Stay (모나용평 블리스힐스테이)' or 'Alpensia Welcome Center (알펜시아 웰컴센터)' on your screen. How to call a taxi without a Korean number is covered in How to Call a Taxi in Korea.

Mona Yongpyong's English shuttle page also lists a 'Public Express Bus' linking Seoul (Seoul Nambu Terminal and Dong Seoul Terminal) with Hoenggye. Its booking site is Tmoney's English intercity bus site (txbuse.t-money.co.kr, customer center 1644-3070), which makes it an intercity bus (시외버스), not an express bus (고속버스), even though 'Express' appears in its English name. Look for tickets on the intercity bus booking site. We didn't check this time whether overseas cards work on this booking site. Cases where overseas cards are blocked on intercity bus sites, and the alternatives, are also covered in How Foreigners Can Book Korean Express Buses in English.

Choose a KTX that stops at Jinbu Station and arrives with plenty of time to spare before the shuttle departure time (Jinbu Station 11:00; in the afternoon, 14:30 for Mona Yongpyong and 14:10 for Alpensia), and get off with your accommodation booking text or lift ticket purchase screen open on your phone.

Elysian Gangchon: No Booking Needed, Just Take the Gyeongchun Line Subway

Elysian Gangchon is a place where almost no step blocks you for lack of a Korean number. The official 'Directions' page tells you to get off at Baegyang-ri Station on the Gyeongchun Line and take the resort's internal loop shuttle, and Elysian runs this loop shuttle for free.

If you've taken the ITX-Cheongchun (the express train that runs on the Gyeongchun Line), the official guide says to get off at Gapyeong or Gangchon Station, transfer to the Gyeongchun Line subway, and ride to Baegyang-ri Station, then take the shuttle. Plan with the transfer time included. For inquiries, contact the Elysian information center (033-260-2345/2346).

There's also a Seoul-area shuttle, but it works differently. Elysian's 'Shuttle Bus' page says that in the 2025-26 season the Seoul-area shuttle ran without reservations, on weekends and public holidays only, with one bus per route. With no booking, there's no step that needs a Korean number, but with only one bus, you can't board once it's full. If nobody boards the bus going from the Seoul area to the resort, the bus returning from the resort to the Seoul area doesn't run either.

We couldn't confirm whether the Seoul-area shuttle is free, or whether it will run in the 2026-27 season. On weekends and public holidays, get to the stop early, and on weekdays or if you're not sure the shuttle is running, plan to take the Gyeongchun Line subway to Baegyang-ri Station. The Gyeongchun Line subway isn't something you book on LACHA.

Getting to Vivaldi Park and High1 by Public Transit Without the Shuttle

Besides the shuttle, Vivaldi Park's official guide also lists routes where you take a bus from Dong Seoul Terminal and transfer along the way. On all three routes, the stop at the resort is the Vivaldi Park bus-only parking lot (between Ocean World and the Ski & Board Main Center).

Vivaldi Park public transit (posted as of 2026-09-28 without a season label, to be updated when 2026-27 is announced)

More buses run from Dong Seoul toward Chuncheon and Hongcheon, while the ride on to Vivaldi is shortest from Yangdeogwon. If the shuttle times don't work, pick one transfer point from this table. Where to buy tickets for buses from Dong Seoul Terminal is covered in Korea Intercity Bus Terminal Guide.

As mentioned above, High1 ski buses are sold by regional travel agencies. The Korean-language booking site of Daewon Tour, the Seoul and Gyeonggi operator, also says 'Cards issued overseas cannot be used' on its High1 shuttle page, just like on the Yongpyong, Alpensia, and Phoenix pages. Foreigners can use high1.rideus.net, where Grace Travel sells the same Daewon Tour routes in English, but it isn't an official resort link, and we couldn't confirm overseas card payment there.

To go without the shuttle, check High1's official 'Public Transportation Guide.' By bus, it's about 2 hours 40 minutes from Seoul to Gohan-Sabuk Public Bus Terminal and about 4 hours from Incheon International Airport, with Bustago (bustago.or.kr) listed as the booking site (as with the Hoenggye bus above, overseas card payment needs to be checked). By train, it's about 3 hours 30 minutes from Cheongnyangni Station to Gohan Station (korail.com). This guide lists no KTX route. Gohan and Sabuk are not KTX stations.

The intercity bus to Gohan-Sabuk and the train to Gohan Station (Taebaek Line) aren't booked on LACHA. If the bus is sold out, first look at the canceled-ticket and bus-class switching methods in When Express and Intercity Buses Are Sold Out.

What to Check When Buying a Travel Agency Day Package

If you're buying a ski shuttle or day tour product on travel platforms like Klook, KKday, or Trazy, check first what's included. Some products sell only the shuttle ticket, so what's included varies from product to product. Prices change every season, so we don't list them here; we only list what to check before you buy.

Take Trazy's Seoul to Vivaldi Park shuttle bus product as an example: it departs Hongik Univ. Station at 07:00 and Euljiro 1(il)-ga Station (Line 2) Exit 8 (near Myeongdong) at 07:30, the return bus leaves the resort at 18:00, and it says it runs 'daily (December to early March)' (no season label). Only the shuttle ticket is included; lift tickets, equipment, and lessons are separate. There's also a line saying the bus stops briefly at a rental shop and people who bought only the shuttle stay on the bus. For cancellations, you get a 100% refund up to 2 days before use, and from 1 day before there's no refund.

Posts left by past users can also help. An analysis of Korean ski resorts and ski tours posted on 2019-08-09 on PTT, a Taiwanese travel community, laid out what can happen on cheap day tours. Some take you to their own equipment shop and push you to buy, and some spend the morning at the equipment shop so you reach the ski resort around noon. Instead of a private vehicle, you might end up lining up in the cold with other tour customers for the ski resort's free shuttle, and the writer said they saw classes with more than 20 students per instructor. Lift tickets had to be bought separately, and the post also gave an example of waiting more than 30 minutes for a lift at Vivaldi during the Lunar New Year holiday. This is what one person saw 7 years ago, so it doesn't mean all tours are like this now, but it's useful for deciding what to check.

Before paying, look for each of these six rows in the product description, and for anything the description doesn't cover, ask the seller before you buy.

How Many Hours to Buy When Lift Tickets Are Time-Based

Besides full-day passes, High1 lift tickets come in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 7-hour time passes. The official price list has no season label, but the sledding hill section on the same page says 'night operation until February 28, 2026,' so it appears to be the 2025-26 season posting.

High1 lift tickets (figures that appear to be from the 2025-26 season posting, to be updated when 2026-27 is announced)

Time is counted from when you first pass through the gate. The clock doesn't run while you rent equipment and change after buying the ticket, so just go through the gate once you're fully ready. You can't ride the lifts during slope grooming (16:00 to 18:00), but if grooming time overlaps with your use, they extend your pass by 2 hours. The official example: with a 3-hour pass, if you pass the gate at 15:00, you can use it until 20:00. Since you can't ride from 16:00 to 18:00, your actual lift time is 15:00 to 16:00 plus 18:00 to 20:00, 3 hours in total.

Here's the order for choosing. First, start from the departure time of your return shuttle or bus, subtract the time to return equipment and change clothes, and set your last lift time. Then count backward to when you'll first pass the gate, and that gives you the hours you need. If 16:00 to 18:00 falls in between, your end time is pushed back by 2 hours (this doesn't add riding time), so just leave those 2 hours out of your count. For example, if you plan to pass the gate at 12:00 and ride until 19:00, 2 of those 7 hours are grooming time, so a 5-hour pass is enough (12:00 to 16:00, 18:00 to 19:00). For adults, the difference between the 4-hour pass (68,000 KRW) and the full-day pass (104,000 KRW) is 36,000 KRW, and between the 7-hour pass (82,000 KRW) and the full-day pass it's 22,000 KRW.

Equipment rental is also charged by the hour under the same price list (figures that appear to be from the 2025-26 season posting). Ski or snowboard rental is 54,000 KRW for adults and 41,000 KRW for children for a full day, 37,000 KRW for adults and 27,000 KRW for children for 7 hours, and 27,000 KRW for adults and 21,000 KRW for children for 4 hours, and helmets are free for all customers. The child lift ticket is for ages 5 to 13, and lift tickets aren't sold to children under 5. We didn't check other resorts' ticket types and grooming hours this time, so first check whether the resort you're going to has time passes on its price list.

How to Pick Your Dates When 2026-27 Opening Days Haven't Been Announced

As of 2026-09-28, we couldn't find an announcement of the 2026-27 opening day on Mona Yongpyong's official operating schedule page or in searches. The operating schedule page has no dates, only a line saying 'the above schedule may change depending on slope conditions' and operating hours by zone. Opening days and shuttle timetables look likely to come out between late October and November. You may need to buy flights before then, and in that case, pick your dates based on previous years' figures.

Previous year (2025-26) opening days (planned dates reported by Yeohaeng Toktok on 2025-11-20; actual opening confirmed only for Yongpyong and Phoenix)

These are based on Yeohaeng Toktok's roundup (2025-11-20), and there's a separate same-day report that Yongpyong and Phoenix actually opened on 2025-11-21. The article also added the caveat that dates are flexible depending on snowfall, weather, and temperature. If you're planning your trip around other December events too, also see Korea Festivals & Events in December 2026.

What has come out first as a 2026-27 figure is the foreigner booking sites' shuttle operating periods. For the Seoul route, Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, and High1 have all posted 2026-11-27 to 2027-03-01, and for the Incheon Airport route, Yongpyong and Alpensia have posted 2026-12-07 to 2027-02-12 (High1's Incheon Airport route is 'TBD', and the notice pop-ups on all four sites still show last season's wording). The Vivaldi foreigner booking site hasn't posted 2026-27 figures yet; last season it ran the Seoul route from 2025-12-05 to 2026-03-02 and announced that 'the schedule and booking opening will be finalized in mid-November 2025.'

If you have to buy flights first, set your dates after the previous year's opening (planned) day of the resort you're going to. If you haven't picked a resort yet, the benchmark is after December 5, the latest of the previous year's planned opening days among the resorts covered in this article (Yongpyong, Phoenix, High1, Alpensia, Vivaldi, Elysian). Opening days change every year depending on snowfall, so this benchmark isn't a sure thing either. If you're going to Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix, or High1, the foreigner booking site has posted the Seoul shuttle operating period as 2026-11-27 to 2027-03-01, so also check whether your travel dates fall within that period. Around mid-November, open the resort's operating schedule and the shuttle booking site again to check whether you can book for your travel dates.

For Yongpyong or Alpensia, the route you can plan without waiting for the shuttle bus timetable is the KTX to Jinbu (Odaesan) Station. However, the winter timetable for the Jinbu Station resort shuttles hasn't been posted yet either, so plan for a taxi from the station to the resort as well. LACHA is a transport app for foreigners that lets you book and pay for taxis, KTX, express buses, VANs (5/6-seater), and the Airport Railroad with overseas payment methods like Alipay and WeChat Pay, and searching the KTX from Seoul Station to Jinbu Station in the app brings up results with a booking button (we didn't go as far as payment or ticketing). In the app's arrival station list, it appears only as Jinbu without Odaesan (checked on the Korean-language screen), so pick it by that name. If you're heading straight from Incheon Airport after landing, you can also book the Airport Railroad Express train to Seoul Station in the same app (you print your ticket at a ticket machine before boarding). If the resort shuttle from the station doesn't fit, try calling a taxi with LACHA, and if you're a group of 4 to 6 with equipment, you can try calling a VAN (5/6-seater), though we couldn't confirm whether long ski bags will fit. We also couldn't confirm whether taxis and VANs actually get dispatched at mountain stations in Gangwon like Jinbu Station, so if you can't get one, look for the taxi stand in front of the station, and if there are no taxis, call Jinbu Taxi (033-335-0088, Korean only). Ski shuttle buses, intercity buses, Taebaek Line trains, the Gyeongchun Line subway, lift tickets, and accommodation are not things you buy on LACHA.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. My overseas card doesn't work on the Korean-language shuttle booking site. Is there another way? A. Daewon Tour's booking sites (Yongpyong, Alpensia, Phoenix) state that 'cards issued overseas cannot be used,' and they don't take virtual account deposits either. Foreigners should go to yongpyong.rideus.net for Yongpyong and vivabus.net for Vivaldi, and for Alpensia, High1, and Phoenix can use alpensia.rideus.net, high1.rideus.net, and phoenix.rideus.net, where the same travel agency as Yongpyong's (Grace Travel) sells the operator's routes in English (they aren't official resort links). We couldn't confirm all the way to the payment step whether overseas cards work on these booking sites, so if you get stuck, contact help@tourtokorea.com (Yongpyong, Alpensia, High1, Phoenix) or dmbus66@naver.com (Vivaldi).

Q2. The foreigner booking site costs more than the Korean-language one. Did I buy the wrong ticket? A. No. The operators state that these are foreigner-only fares that include a travel agency booking fee. For Yongpyong, the Korean-language booking site currently posts 18,000 KRW one way and the foreigner booking site 22,000 KRW. For Vivaldi, the foreigner booking site's 2025-26 Seoul one-way fare and the Seoul one-way fare the Korean-language booking site currently posts for its summer 2026 service are both 10,000 KRW, so it's not always the case that foreigners pay more.

Q3. Can day-trippers who only buy a lift ticket ride the resort shuttle from Jinbu Station? A. We couldn't confirm this. Mona Yongpyong says 'resort visitors only; proof such as a booking text message, ticket, or membership is checked,' and Alpensia says 'limited to Alpensia customers; a booking text message or similar is checked.' Neither says it's for hotel guests only, but neither says what day-trippers should show. With only two round trips a day normally, have your lift ticket purchase screen or booking text open and show it when you board, and if you're told no or the times don't fit, take a taxi (about 20 minutes).

Q4. Is there a way to go straight from Incheon Airport to a ski resort? A. The Yongpyong foreigner booking site has posted the Incheon Airport route's operating period as 2026-12-07 to 2027-02-12, and its fare table (no season label) lists 42,000 KRW one way and 84,000 KRW round trip for adults. The Alpensia foreigner booking site (alpensia.rideus.net) has posted the same period for its Incheon Airport route, at 42,000 KRW one way. The High1 foreigner booking site lists its Incheon Airport fare as 42,000 KRW one way, but its operating period is still 'TBD'. The Korean-language booking site's Incheon Airport route (2025-26 adult one way 40,000 KRW) is for Korean nationals only. Alpensia's official 'Airport Bus' guide also lists a Gangwon Yeogaek (033-643-6123) limousine from Incheon and Gimpo airports to the resort. At Incheon Airport you buy the ticket at the ticket counter (adult one way 34,500 KRW), and the posted timetable is a single run leaving Incheon Airport Terminal 2 at 09:10, stopping at Terminal 1 (bus stop 13A) at 09:40 and Gimpo Airport at 10:10, and arriving in front of the Alpensia Welcome Center at 13:40 (posted as of 2026-10-02, no season label; it notes that you may have to transfer when there are few passengers, and we couldn't confirm whether the ticket counter takes overseas cards). By train, take the Airport Railroad to Seoul Station and then the KTX to Jinbu Station; for High1, it's about 4 hours by bus from Incheon Airport to Gohan-Sabuk Public Bus Terminal. How a group with lots of gear can get a large vehicle at the airport is covered in How to Get a Large Taxi or Van at Incheon Airport.

Q5. When do ski resorts open for the 2026-27 season? A. As of 2026-09-28, we couldn't find any announcement. In the previous season (2025-26), Mona Yongpyong and Phoenix opened first on 2025-11-21, and High1 was reported as planning to open on 11-28, Alpensia on 12-03, Vivaldi on 12-04, and Elysian Gangchon and Welli Hilli on 12-05. Dates change with snowfall and temperature, so check each resort's operating schedule page again around mid-November.