Muuido island: a bus from the airport, not a ferry

Muuido sits just south of the Incheon Airport island. Until 30 April 2019 you reached it by a short boat from Jamjindo. That day a road bridge opened, and the ferry company closed the same day. Today a village bus, Muui-1, runs from the airport terminal across that bridge to the far end of the island.

Incheon Airport to Muuido island: the bus, October 2026

Muui-1 is a village bus (마을버스) and its first stop is Incheon Airport Terminal 1, third floor, stop 7 (인천공항T1 3층7번). The national bus data, as relayed by Bustrain and updated on 19 August 2026, lists the first bus at 06:00 and the last at 21:00, with a bus every 40 minutes on weekdays. The fields for Saturday and Sunday gaps are blank. The fare is listed only as the city bus fare table, with no amount.

The route runs out past the Hyatt and Yongyu station, along the Geojampo seawall, onto Jamjindo and over the bridge. On the island it calls at Keunmuri wharf (큰무리선착장), the Silmi junction (실미삼거리), the community centre, Hanagae beach, Gwangmyeong port and ends at the Muui public car park (무의공영주차장), then comes back the same way to Terminal 1.

So from Terminal 1 the whole trip is one bus, once you have gone up from the arrivals floor to the third floor. If you land at Terminal 2, cross to Terminal 1 first, as in the terminal transfer guide; the stop list starts and ends at Terminal 1.

The 21:00 time is a last departure, and the data does not say from which end. Treat the last bus back off the island as earlier than that, and photograph the timetable at your first island stop.

Is there a ferry to Muuido island from Seoul?

No. Incheon Today went out on 30 April 2019, the day the Muui bridge opened, and found the ticket office at Jamjindo wharf empty: the ferry company, Muuido Haeun (무의도해운), had stopped trading that day. The same report says about 300 cars a day used to come over by boat, and that the village bus number 1, which had run only on the island, had been extended to Geojampo to carry passengers across the bridge. Today’s Muui-1, which runs on from Geojampo to the airport, follows that same road onto the island.

The bridge itself was described in 2018 by the Incheon Free Economic Zone, via Hankook Ilbo, as 1.6 km long and 8 to 12 m wide, built from 2014 and due to open on 30 April 2019. It did, on that date, as a temporary opening.

English pages have not all moved with it. Wikipedia’s article on Muuido opens its transport line with “served by a daily ferry from Incheon ferry terminal on the mainland, as well as by a frequent car ferry” across the channel, and only then says that with the bridge, ferry service “has been reduced”. Its Silmido article calls Muuido an island “connected to the mainland by ferry”. The Jamjindo boat, the short crossing from the airport side, closed in 2019, so treat any page that leads with a boat as written before the bridge.

So “Muuido island from Seoul” now means the airport railway to Incheon Airport Terminal 1, covered in the airport to Seoul guide in the other direction, then Muui-1. The same thing happened this year to the islands on the north side of the airport, where the Sindo bridge replaced another ferry.

Can you walk to Silmido island?

Yes, and only at low tide. Silmido is a small uninhabited island off the north-west of Muuido, and at low water you can walk to it across the flats from Silmi beach (실미해수욕장). The Muui-1 stop that carries its name is the Silmi junction.

On 4 March 2023, around 2 pm, 16 people who had walked in from Silmi beach to hike were cut off when the water came in. Metro Seoul reported high tide that day at 15:50, and that they could not have walked back to Muuido until after 19:00. The Incheon coast guard took them off with a rescue boat, an inflatable and a hovercraft.

Check the tide first. The Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency publishes the official tide times, and a search for 무의도 물때 (Muuido tide) brings up the day’s high and low water. Cross on a falling tide and be back well before the next high. The coast guard’s own advice in that report was to check it and to stay out of places you do not know.

Silmido is also the answer to “silmido island movie”. The island was the training ground of Unit 684, a secret unit set up after the 1968 raid on the Blue House. On 23 August 1971 its members broke out, seized a bus in Incheon and headed for Seoul. Seoul Shinmun described the incident as having stayed behind a veil until the film. Silmido, by Kang Woo-suk, opened on 24 December 2003, and the paper’s article ahead of the opening noted that the film adds fiction to the record because the court files were closed and there were no survivors to ask.

What is at Muuido island Hanagae beach?

Hanagae (하나개해수욕장) is the big beach on the west side, about a kilometre long by Wikipedia’s count, with a wide tidal flat and its own Muui-1 stop. The 2019 report counted close to 400 parking spaces there, the largest on the island, because summer is when the crowds come.

Near it is the set of the SBS drama Stairway to Heaven (천국의 계단), which aired in 2003 and 2004. Incheon Today reported in November 2021 that the set had been left standing for years. A 2017 safety inspection rated the main building E (poor). Jung-gu said it was reviewing demolition, had looked at it once before in 2018, and in the meantime had blocked the doors and patched the paths around it, with no demolition or reuse plan yet. Residents wanted it kept as a landmark. The same report notes that the area is an ecology grade-1 conservation zone, which is why a 2016 plan to develop the beach failed its environmental review.

The last report is from November 2021, so treat the set as a building to look at from outside, if it is still there.

Somuuido and the Muuido island sea tour trail

At the south end of Muuido, past Gwangmyeong port, a footbridge crosses to Somuuido (소무의도), which Incheon city describes as 200 m east of the main island and car-free. The Muui-1 bus calls at Gwangmyeong port, and you walk from there.

The “sea tour trail” people search for is the Muui Sea Nuri-gil (무의바다누리길). The city’s 2023 card gives it as 2.5 km and about 1 hour, starting at the Somuuido footbridge and passing the seafood stalls, the Buchokkaemi viewpoint, Mongyeo beach (몽여해수욕장, 250 m of white oyster shell and pebbles), the Storium cafe on the old school ground, and the Janggun rock at the end of a shore path that is only open at low tide.

In 2019 Gwangmyeong port had 97 spaces. Incheon Today found the seafront spaces full on a weekday, and a shopkeeper there said the port could not take 100 cars. The bus stops at the port, which makes it the easier way to the footbridge.

Muuido island in half a day from the airport

The order that works is to ride to the far end first and work back towards the airport, so the last leg is the one you can least afford to miss.

If you are on a layover, read the transit entry rules first. The Muui-1 stop is on the landside of Terminal 1, so you need to have entered Korea to use it.

When not to go

A sunny summer weekend is when the road and the car parks fill. In 2019 the island had 925 parking spaces in total and a road that was one car wide in places, and Incheon Today predicted that ten times the usual traffic would follow the bridge. I have not found a newer count of spaces. So treat a fine Saturday in July as a day for the bus, and an autumn weekday as the day for anything else.

What we could not check

• The Muui-1 fare and its weekend timetable. The data gives the city bus fare table and a weekday gap only.
• Whether the Stairway to Heaven set is still standing. The last report I read is from November 2021.
• The entry fee at Silmi beach. The 2019 report lists it as a resort (유원지) with its own car park, and blogs mention a charge. I have not confirmed it with the operator.
• Whether the Jung-gu 6 and 6-1 buses, which the city’s 2023 card gives as a route to Muuido from Dongincheon (6 direct, or 306 and a change to 6 or 6-1 at Geojampo), still run under those numbers since Incheon reorganised its districts and created Yeongjong-gu.
• The bridge length. The 1.6 km figure is from the 2018 construction report, not a survey of the finished bridge.

If you have taken Muui-1 recently, tell me what the timetable at the stop says, especially the last bus back.