Baeron and Baeti Without a Car: A Public Transport Guide

Sep 2026 | Note | hellokr.kr

A reader wrote to us with a question: the article said Baeti Shrine can be reached by public transportation — but is there a bus from Baeti to Baeron? The short answer is no, there is not. The more important answer is a different one: if you have no car, Baeron is the easier of the two. Baeron is the one close to a train line, and once you measure the actual routes in hours, the difference is clear.

This note covers how to reach each shrine from Seoul by public transportation alone, and why you should not try to combine the two in one day.

Baeron — the Shrine You Reach by Train

Baeron, in one of the deepest valleys of Korean Catholic history, holds the grave of Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop, Korea's second priest, and the clay hut where Hwang Sa-yeong wrote his Silk Letter during the persecution of 1801.

1. Cheongnyangni Station → Jecheon Station, by KTX-Eum. About 1 hour 8 minutes, with roughly ten round trips on a weekday, so most times of day give you a choice of trains. Book on Korail's English site (letskorail.com) or the Korail Talk app.
2. Jecheon Station → Baeron Shrine, by taxi. There is a taxi rank in front of the station. About 14 km, 23 minutes, around 20,000 won. The destination to show the driver: 배론성지 (Baeron Shrine — 296 Baeronseongji-gil, Bongyang-eup, Jecheon).
3. If you prefer the bus: route 852. It leaves Jecheon Bus Terminal three times a day — around 8 in the morning, around 1 in the afternoon, around 6 in the evening — and its last stop is the shrine itself. With a schedule like that, your day belongs to the bus. The taxi is the realistic choice.

A suggested day: a morning train from Cheongnyangni → Jecheon around 9:30 → taxi → arrive at Baeron by 10 → 11:00 Mass → lunch, then the grave and the clay hut → afternoon taxi back to Jecheon Station → evening in Seoul.

If you want to see the place before you go, this visitor's account is rich in photographs. It is in Korean — open it in Chrome and the browser will offer to translate: a photo walkthrough of Baeron.

Baeti — Possible, but Harder

Baeti is the mountain village that Father Choe Yang-eop made the base of his ministry. Public transportation does reach it, but the difficulty is of a different order.

• From Dong Seoul Terminal, take an intercity bus to Jincheon (about 1 hour 40 minutes). Online booking for intercity buses often rejects overseas cards, so buying at the terminal counter or a ticket machine is actually the simpler way.
• From Jincheon Terminal the shrine is 17 km away. Local buses exist, but they run only a few times a day and the timetable changes often — check it at the terminal on the day.
• The realistic option is a taxi (about 26 minutes) — but there are no waiting taxis near the shrine. If you go in without arranging your way back, you are stranded in the hills. Negotiating a round trip with the driver, or securing a call-taxi number, is close to essential.

With Korean, or with a companion who has it, none of this is a problem. Alone and without the language, Baeti is better saved for a second visit.

Both in One Day? Not Without a Car

On the map the two shrines look like neighbors. By car they are about 104 km apart — roughly an hour and a half. By public transportation there is no direct connection at all: the route Naver Map returns — a rural bus, a city bus, a train, then another bus — takes more than five hours. With a car, the pair is a day trip. Without one, the honest answer is one shrine per day, starting from Seoul.

In Seoul, the Subway Is All You Need

Before the countryside shrines, two places in Seoul involve no transportation worries at all.

• Seosomun Shrine History Museum — built on the old execution ground outside Seosomun Gate, where 44 of Korea's 103 canonized martyr-saints died. A 7-minute walk from Chungjeongno Station. Free, closed Mondays.
• Myeongdong Cathedral — the mother church of Catholic Korea. English Mass on Sundays at 9:00, per the official listing of the Archdiocese of Seoul. A short walk from Myeongdong Station.

Seoul's martyrdom sites are covered in a separate article — see the links at the end of this note.

A Toolkit for Traveling Without the Language

• NAVER Map. Google Maps cannot give walking or driving directions in Korea (the country restricts the export of map data), so the local app is not optional. NAVER Map has an English interface: on iPhone, Settings → Apps → NAVER Map → Language → English is the fastest way to switch. English search is weak for smaller places, so copy and paste the Korean names below straight into the search bar:
  • 배론성지 — Baeron Shrine
  • 배티성지 — Baeti Shrine
  • 서소문성지 역사박물관 — Seosomun Shrine History Museum
• The 1330 travel helpline. 24 hours, English, free. Dial 1330 anywhere in Korea — or use the 1330 web chat, which needs no phone call at all. When words fail on the ground, 1330 will interpret between you and the Korean person in front of you, and in an emergency they will connect you to 112 (police) or 119 (ambulance) and stay on the line.
• Taxi apps. With an overseas card, use K.ride (Kakao Mobility's app for international visitors) rather than Kakao T. In small towns, though, the taxi rank at the station beats any app.
• Transit card. A physical T-money card from any convenience store (top up with cash), or a WOWPASS, which combines currency exchange, a prepaid card and T-money in one.
• Translation. The Papago app. Its camera mode handles signs and menus well.

Sources

• Baeron Shrine, official site — directions, bus 852 times, daily Mass at 11:00
• Archdiocese of Seoul — Masses for foreigners, including the Sunday 9:00 English Mass at Myeongdong Cathedral
• Korail, English booking site
• Korea Tourism Organization, 1330 web chat
• A visitor's photo walkthrough of Baeron (Korean)
• Routes and distances measured on Naver Map, September 2026