Gyeongju, Day Two: Bulguksa and Seokguram by Bus

The first day was walked. This one is ridden. Gyeongju's city-centre sites reach each other on foot, but Bulguksa is 11 km out and Seokguram is above it on Tohamsan. You can still get to both without calling a taxi, and both the city and the temple publish how.

Before you go

• 🚌Bus 10-1 will not take you to Bulguksa

  One character apart, a different route. Bus 10-1 turns back at Gyeongju World instead of continuing to the temple.

• 🕐The bus down the mountain leaves on the hour

  Seokguram states the departure that way. That single line, not any closing time, is what orders this day.

• 🎫Neither place charges admission

  Both have been free since 4 May 2023 under the revised Cultural Heritage Protection Act. A notice quoting 6,000 won predates it.

• 🌧️A weather warning can close Seokguram

  Under a heavy-rain, typhoon or heavy-snow advisory or warning, access to the precinct may be suspended for visitors' safety.

Today the clock is the bus, not the last admission

Yesterday's centre walk was ordered by one time: the museum stopped admitting at 17:30. Today is different. The two last admissions are identical, and the bus does the ordering instead.

Bulguksa and Seokguram publish the same seasonal table, to the half hour.

Weekdays, weekends and public holidays are the same, and both are open all year. So neither is a place you plan a day around getting to in time. Leave in the morning and the deadline never enters into it.

What does narrow the day is the bus off the mountain. Seokguram puts it plainly: buses returning from Seokguram to Bulguksa leave on the hour. Nothing states the interval for Bus 12 going up; only the descent is pinned.

That is why 12:00–13:00 is an hour. Not because an hour is what there is to see, but because time on the summit only divides into sixty-minute pieces. Be up there at the hour this route sets and the next option is sixty minutes later, and the one after that sixty minutes later again.

From the terminal to Bulguksa

Bus 10 is what the city calls its "golden route" — it runs past the central sites and turns around at Bulguksa.

• First bus 06:00, last 21:40, from the express/intercity bus terminal
• Headway about 20 minutes
• 35–45 minutes terminal to Bulguksa when the bus does not stop in between (traffic varies it)
• You get off at the Bulguksa stop, ID 01-161 — the route's turning point — and it is 3–5 minutes on foot to the temple

Bus 11 runs the same route in the opposite direction. Seokguram's own directions say to use Bus 10, 11 or 700 towards Bulguksa from the terminal or the city centre, and that from Singyeongju Station you want the Bus 700 that runs four times a day.

Fares, transfers, and the transfer that does not count

The city bus fare is flat regardless of distance — 1,300 won for an adult, 1,000 for a youth, 700 for a child, and 50 won less with a transit card.

The transfer carries conditions: within 30 minutes of getting off, once a day, and only onto a different route. Changing to Bus 12 at Bulguksa qualifies, because that is a different route. Getting off Bus 10 partway and boarding another Bus 10 does not — same route, so you pay again.

There are ten more minutes on foot from the car park

Seokguram is not a place you pull up in front of, even by car: it is ten minutes on foot from the car park to the precinct, and the temple says so itself.

🔴 That ten minutes is attached to the driving section of Seokguram's directions. It is not measured from a bus stop, so whether it applies unchanged after arriving by bus is something this article has not confirmed. What holds either way is that the last stretch up to the chamber is not flat ground.

Parking costs the same at both: 2,000 won for a small or mid-size vehicle, 4,000 for a bus. Seokguram's car park is run by the tourism team of the Gyeongju city facilities agency.

The Tomb of King Munmu is not on this bus

Plan a Gyeongju trip and the Tomb of King Munmu comes up alongside these two — the Silla king's underwater tomb in the sea off Bonggil-ri, designated a Historic Site in 1967 and managed by Gyeongju City.

But today's bus does not go there. The route that does is 150, not 10, and Bus 150 does not pass Bulguksa. The two leave the city in different directions — 10 towards the foot of Tohamsan to the south-east, 150 east to the coast.

Bus 150 works like this.

• First bus 06:45, last 21:40 from the terminal; 06:25 and 20:50 from Yangnam
• Headway 40–50 minutes — more than double Bus 10's
• 50 minutes to an hour from the Gyeongju city area to Yangnam-myeon
• You get off at the 문무왕릉, 봉길해수욕장 stop (02-057) and walk 3–5 minutes

What changes in winter

Last admission moves an hour earlier, to 17:00, from November through January. This route starts in the morning and comes off the mountain in the early afternoon, so the deadline itself is never in play.

What changes is the slack. Miss the bus on the hour and the next is sixty minutes away, and in winter those sixty minutes run towards dusk. Tohamsan is colder than the city and gets dark sooner — decide when you are leaving the chamber before you go in.

Winter also raises the odds of a weather warning. Under a heavy-snow advisory or warning, access to the Seokguram precinct may be suspended. On a day like that you climb the mountain and turn around at the gate, so it is worth checking before setting out.

Where this route continues

• 

  Hwangnidan-gil

  Yesterday's last stop. The centre walk finishes on this street.

• 

  Bulguksa Temple

  Today's first stop. A separate article covers only how to check its hours and fees.

• 

  Tomb of King Munmu

  The one today leaves out. It needs Bus 150 from the terminal, on its own trip.