5 hour layover in Seoul, time to do anything?
 

This is my first time through Seoul, I fly into Icheon at 6am and out at 11am. Is that time enough to get out of the airport and see anything? If so, what do you recommend?

IMO it's not enough time to get to Seoul. You'd need to allow over an hour each way leaving almost no time in Seoul. It's also an expensive journey by taxi and takes a bit of figuring out by bus.

I have heard that Incheon village is worth popping out to see if you are very bored indeed, but I haven't tried it myself.

Yes and no. Not really enough time unless you just want to see the Seoul cityscape.

If you exchange money, do it on the departure level. The rates are better, even comparing the same banks!

I arrived at 7 am and left at 5 pm, which was enough time. I sat around the airport until about 8:30 am because I thought things would be closed early in the morning.

There's a fast train. If you do go, study the train website and decide exactly where you want to go. Even saving 10 minutes is worthwhile for a quick stop like you might do.

Does the train go to Seoul now? Last time I was there it only went to Gimpo airport (which took 28 minutes, not any more "high speed" than taking the bus). Gimpo is only about halfway to Seoul. It is supposed to open all the way this year, but I googled this and didn't find anything that said it had opened yet.

That was the case when I visited Seoul in 2009. Now it seems that you would change at Gimpo for a stopping train on line 5 or line 9. In any case, it's not that the bus is slow, it's that the distance from ICN to Seoul is considerable.

I would say that you don't have enough time for it to be worth it to go into Seoul and back.

ICN is a really nice airport, if you want to relax they have a hotel airside which can help you kill time/freshen up.

Safe Travels

Not to be snarky, but I'd recommend asking this question in the Asia forum. That's where the experts on Korea tend to hang out. Nothing wrong with the answers so far, but you'll probably get more input there. I'll ask a moderator to move it so you don't have to cross-post.

(I'd welcome you to FT, but I see you had two posts in 2003 as well as two more last year. So, welcome back!)

Indeed, please follow the thread as it moves to our Travel->Asia forum for further discussion. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

The 11 am flight will begin boarding 30-60 minutes before departure time which serves to further shorten the connection to more like 4 hours, which is even less time to glimpse Seoul and definately not worth it IMHO.

We seem to get this question a lot around here. Are all connections through ICN five hours? ;)

Seemingly. :D