Gangneung’s Olympic Legacy: Exploring Post-2018 Winter Games Venues and Activities

From Mountain Slopes to Open Ice: Gangneung’s Olympic Story

When South Korea hosted the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the coastal city of Gangneung became the beating heart of the ice sports program. Sitting along the East Sea in Gangwon Province, Gangneung welcomed curlers, figure skaters, speed skaters, and hockey players — along with hundreds of thousands of spectators who discovered a city with far more personality than a temporary sports venue. Six years on, the legacy of those Games has reshaped Gangneung in tangible ways: world-class ice arenas remain operational, the high-speed rail now connects the city to Seoul in under two hours, and a generation of Korean athletes who grew up watching those competitions has fueled grassroots interest in winter sports. But Gangneung was always more than a games backdrop. The city has pine-fringed beaches, a centuries-old Confucian academy, an inexplicable obsession with specialty coffee, and some of the best seafood on the Korean peninsula. This guide covers all of it — the venues, the ice experiences, the food, and the practical logistics that make Gangneung worth the trip in any season.

What the 2018 Winter Olympics Did to Gangneung

Before 2018, Gangneung was known primarily to Koreans — as a summer beach destination, as the hometown of the Joseon-era poet Heo Gyun, and as the eastern terminus of a long highway drive from Seoul. The Olympics rewired the city’s infrastructure and its self-image simultaneously.

The most consequential change was the KTX Gyeonggang Line, a dedicated high-speed rail connection that reduced the Seoul-to-Gangneung journey from roughly three hours by car or bus to around one hour and forty minutes by train. That single infrastructure upgrade fundamentally altered who could visit and how often. Weekend trips from the capital became genuinely easy, and visitor numbers climbed steadily after the Games concluded.

The Olympic Park itself — built on reclaimed land along the coast — gave Gangneung a new urban district that didn’t exist before. The arenas, the plaza, the waterfront promenade: all of it was purpose-built, and the city has spent years figuring out how to animate that space in ways that serve residents and visitors rather than just gathering dust between international competitions.

There’s also a cultural legacy that’s harder to quantify. The curling team’s surprise silver medal run captured the entire country’s attention and sparked a nationwide boom in the sport. Short-track speed skating, already beloved in Korea, gained new devotees. Ice hockey developed a following it had never previously enjoyed. All of this created genuine demand for ice sports participation that the post-Olympic venues are now positioned to meet.

Inside the Venues: What’s Open to Visitors Now

Gangneung Olympic Park contains five main ice venues, and the good news for visitors is that several of them have transitioned into public-facing facilities rather than being mothballed or demolished — a fate that has plagued Olympic venues in other host cities.

Gangneung Ice Arena

This was the figure skating and short-track speed skating venue during the Games, and it remains one of the most visually striking buildings in the park. The arena now functions as a multipurpose ice facility hosting regular public skating sessions, competitions, and events. The interior still carries the visual language of the Olympic era — the proportions are grand, the ice surface is immaculate, and skating here feels genuinely different from a local rink. The venue hosts ice shows periodically, and during major Korean national holidays it often runs special skating programs.

Gangneung Oval

The long-track speed skating oval is an architectural marvel in its own right — a vast, egg-shaped structure that held 8,000 spectators during the Games. It has been converted into a multi-sport complex that includes the original 400-meter oval ice track (open seasonally for public long-track skating), an indoor sports facility, and exhibition spaces related to the Olympic history. Walking the 400-meter oval yourself, even slowly, gives you a visceral sense of what the athletes were doing at speeds exceeding 50 kilometers per hour.

Gangneung Curling Centre

Thanks to the viral fame of the Korean women’s curling team — nicknamed “Team Kim” and affectionately called the “Garlic Girls” after their hometown of Uiseong — this venue became something of a pilgrimage site immediately after the Games. It continues to operate as a legitimate curling facility, hosting national-level competitions and training programs. Visitor access varies by season and competition schedule, but it’s worth checking ahead, as the centre does run introductory curling programs at certain times of year.

Kwandong Hockey Centre

Located on the campus of Kwandong University in Gangneung, this 6,000-seat hockey arena hosted women’s ice hockey during the 2018 Games. It’s now used by the university’s athletic programs and for domestic hockey competitions. Access is more restricted than the Olympic Park venues, but the arena is architecturally interesting and the surrounding university campus makes for a pleasant walk.

Ice Sports You Can Actually Try

One of Gangneung’s genuine advantages for visitors over most Olympic legacy cities is that you can actually participate in the sports, not just observe the empty infrastructure. This is partly by design — the Korean government and local authorities committed to using the venues for sport development rather than conversion to hotels or shopping centers.

Public Ice Skating

The Gangneung Ice Arena and Gangneung Oval both offer public skating sessions during operating hours. The Oval’s long-track is particularly special — skating a full 400-meter loop on Olympic ice is a unique experience. Rental skates are available at both venues. Sessions are reasonably priced, and the quality of the ice is maintained at a professional standard because the venues continue to host serious competitions. Weekday mornings tend to be the quietest times; weekend afternoons attract crowds, particularly in winter.

Curling Introductory Programs

Several operators in Gangneung now offer introductory curling sessions for tourists, and the Gangneung Curling Centre itself has hosted open programs at various points since the Games. Even without organized programs, the sport has permeated local culture enough that asking about curling experiences at the Olympic Park information center usually yields useful leads. The learning curve is steep enough to be humbling and gentle enough to be fun within an hour — which is precisely what makes it a good tourist activity.

Short-Track Watching and Clinics

Short-track speed skating clinics for beginners do appear on the Gangneung event calendar, particularly during winter months. These are less consistently available than general skating, but they’re worth researching before your visit. Even without a clinic, watching a Korean national-level short-track competition from the stands of the Ice Arena — an experience you can have for a modest ticket price — is electrifying in a way that television simply doesn’t capture.

Gangneung Olympic Park: More Than a Photo Stop

The Olympic Park as a whole rewards slower exploration than most visitors give it. Many people arrive, photograph the arena exteriors, walk the main plaza, and leave within ninety minutes. That’s a missed opportunity.

The park’s waterfront location means you’re walking along the East Sea with the arena skyline behind you — a genuinely unusual visual combination. The promenade connects to a broader coastal path that stretches toward Gyeongpo Beach, making it possible to fold the park into a longer seafront walk.

Inside the park, the Olympic Museum is worth an hour of serious attention. The exhibition covers not just the 2018 Games but the history of the Winter Olympics more broadly, with strong emphasis on Korean athletic achievements. There are interactive displays, original equipment, and enough multimedia content to hold the interest of visitors who aren’t dedicated sports fans. The curling section, predictably, gets expansive treatment.

The plaza between the arenas hosts regular markets, outdoor concerts, and seasonal events. In winter, the area around the park takes on a festive character — there’s often outdoor ice skating in the plaza itself, and the lighting design of the park comes into its own after dark. In summer, the same space fills with food vendors and evening crowds taking advantage of the sea breeze.

The Sooho mascot — the white tiger that became the official emblem of the 2018 Games — appears throughout the park in statue and mural form, and has become something of a beloved local icon. Gangneung has leaned into this identity enthusiastically, and Sooho merchandise is available throughout the park and the broader city.

The Coastal Character of Gangneung

Strip away the Olympic infrastructure and Gangneung is still a compelling destination — a coastal city with a distinct identity shaped by the East Sea, pine forests, and a Confucian cultural heritage that runs deep.

Gyeongpo Beach and Lake

Gyeongpo Beach is one of the longest sandy beaches on Korea’s east coast, stretching several kilometers with a backdrop of the iconic coastal pine forest that Gangwon Province is famous for. The beach is backed by Gyeongpo Lake, a large freshwater lagoon separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land — a landscape configuration that gives the area a genuinely unusual atmosphere. The lakeside walking and cycling path is excellent, and the traditional pavilion Gyeongpodae, which has overlooked the lake since the Goryeo period, provides a moment of historical grounding amid the beach resort atmosphere.

Ojukheon House

This is one of the oldest wooden residential structures in Korea, a National Treasure dating to the early Joseon period. It was the birthplace of Shin Saimdang — the scholar, artist, and poet whose image appears on the Korean 50,000-won banknote — and of her son Yi I, one of Korea’s most celebrated Confucian philosophers. The house and its surrounding garden are quietly beautiful, and the attached museum provides useful context for understanding Joseon-era intellectual culture without overwhelming visitors with academic detail.

Jeongdongjin and the Sunrise

Technically a day trip topic, but worth mentioning here because it shapes how Gangneung thinks about itself: the nearby village of Jeongdongjin is one of the most famous sunrise-watching spots in South Korea. The tradition of gathering there for the new year’s first sunrise draws enormous crowds, but the location is worth visiting any morning for the simple drama of the East Sea at dawn. The train station at Jeongdongjin — famously positioned right on the beach — is one of the more surreal pieces of infrastructure on the Korean rail network.

Eating Your Way Through Gangneung

Gangneung’s food scene is anchored by the East Sea, which delivers a seafood supply that is genuinely fresher and more varied than what reaches inland cities. The local food culture is unpretentious and intensely regional — dishes here reflect the cold coastal climate and the mountainous inland terrain of Gangwon Province rather than the refined restaurant culture of Seoul.

Chodang Sundubu

Gangneung’s most famous culinary export is its sundubu — soft tofu — made using seawater from the East Sea as a coagulant instead of the artificial coagulants used in mass production. The result is a silkier, more delicately flavored tofu than you’ll find almost anywhere else in Korea. The Chodang neighborhood, named after the pen name of the scholar Heo Yeop who is credited with developing the style, is essentially a dedicated tofu village with dozens of restaurants serving sundubu in various forms. It sounds like a humble meal, but a proper Chodang sundubu jjigae (stew) with banchan and rice is genuinely one of the finer things you can eat in Korea.

Seafood at Jumunjin Port

Jumunjin is a working fishing port north of central Gangneung, and its fish market operates on the chaotic, colorful schedule of a place that actually processes catch rather than performing for tourists. The market’s restaurants serve haemul ttukbaegi (seafood hot pot), ganjang gejang (soy-marinated raw crab), and enormous platters of raw fish that represent some of the best sashimi eating on the Korean coast. Arrival times matter — the freshest fish and the liveliest market atmosphere are early morning phenomena.

Memil (Buckwheat) Dishes

Gangwon Province has historically been buckwheat country, and Gangneung reflects this in dishes you won’t find as commonly elsewhere. Memil jeonbyeong — buckwheat crepes filled with kimchi and vegetables — are a street food staple. Memil guksu (buckwheat noodle soup) is a restorative winter dish. The nutty, slightly earthy quality of locally grown buckwheat is noticeably different from the processed versions used in chains, and eating these dishes in Gangneung gives them a geographical authenticity that matters.

Soju and Makgeolli Culture

Gangwon Province produces its own regional varieties of makgeolli (rice wine), and the combination of cold sea air, excellent seafood, and a cold cup of local makgeolli is one of those travel experiences that sounds modest in description and feels irreplaceable in practice. The pochangmacha (street tent pojangmacha) culture along the coast in Gangneung means that late-evening eating and drinking happens outdoors — a scene that’s particularly atmospheric when the sea is audible and the air smells of brine.

Coffee Town and the Café Culture Phenomenon

There is a neighborhood in Gangneung called Anmok, near Anmok Beach, that has become one of the most concentrated café districts in South Korea — which is a striking claim in a country that arguably has the world’s most intense café culture per capita. The story of how this happened is a good one.

It began in the 1980s when a café called Bos Coffee opened at Anmok Beach, becoming famous for takeaway coffee consumed on the beachfront. The concept of drinking coffee while walking the sandy shore became a local tradition, and other cafés followed. Over decades, the neighborhood accumulated enough coffee establishments to become a genuine destination — and by the time the Olympics brought national attention to Gangneung, Anmok’s café strip was ready to go viral.

Today, the strip along Anmok Beach and the surrounding streets contains several hundred cafés, ranging from international specialty coffee roasters to traditional Korean tea houses to experimental beverage concepts. The quality level is genuinely high — Gangneung hosts its own coffee festival, and the city has developed a reputation among Korean coffee professionals as a place where serious coffee culture happens outside Seoul.

What makes the experience distinctive rather than just concentrated is the setting. Drinking a carefully crafted pour-over while sitting on a deck overlooking the East Sea, in a wooden café surrounded by coastal pines, is not an experience you replicate in an urban neighborhood. The combination of quality and environment has made Gangneung’s café scene into something that draws visitors specifically for the coffee, independent of everything else the city offers.

Day Trips from Gangneung

Gangneung’s position in Gangwon Province places it within reach of some of the most dramatic landscapes in South Korea, making it a natural base for exploring the wider region.

Seoraksan National Park

The most famous mountain park in Korea, Seoraksan sits roughly 60 to 70 kilometers north of Gangneung. The park contains some of the most spectacular alpine scenery on the Korean peninsula — granite peaks, waterfalls, Buddhist temples tucked into forested valleys, and a cable car that lifts non-hikers to elevated views without requiring a full-day trek. The park is accessible by bus from Gangneung, and autumn, when the maple and oak forests turn, is the most photogenic season — though it’s also the most crowded.

Jeongdongjin

As mentioned in the coastal section, this small village 17 kilometers south of Gangneung is one of the most atmospheric spots on the east coast. Beyond the famous beach-adjacent train station, Jeongdongjin has a cliff-top sculpture garden, a ship-shaped hotel that has become a local landmark, and walking trails along dramatic coastal bluffs. The Jeongdongjin train runs directly from Gangneung Station on the local line — the journey itself is pleasantly scenic.

Odaesan National Park

Less frequented than Seoraksan but arguably more serene, Odaesan sits inland from Gangneung. The park’s primary cultural draw is Woljeongsa Temple — a complex that traces its origins to the 7th century and contains a nine-story stone pagoda that is one of the finest examples of Goryeo-era Buddhist architecture in existence. The fir tree forest path leading to the temple is famous in its own right: tall, perfectly straight Korean firs line a well-maintained trail that feels genuinely otherworldly in early morning fog or winter snow.

Haerang Trail Coastal Path

For visitors who prefer to stay close to the coast, the Haerang Trail is a long-distance walking route that runs along the East Sea coastline through Gangwon Province. Sections near Gangneung are accessible for day walks, offering clifftop paths, quiet fishing villages, and beaches that see a fraction of the crowds that Gyeongpo attracts. The trail’s infrastructure is well-maintained and well-signed, and the scenery along even short sections is rewarding.

Getting to Gangneung and Getting Around

Arriving by KTX

The most practical option from Seoul is the KTX high-speed train from Seoul Station or Cheongnyangni Station to Gangneung Station. Journey time is approximately one hour and forty minutes to two hours depending on the specific service. Trains run frequently, particularly on weekends, and the line is extremely popular — advance booking through Korail’s website or the SRT booking app is strongly recommended, especially for travel during school holidays, winter sports season, and the new year period.

Arriving by Bus

Express buses from Seoul’s Dong Seoul Bus Terminal and Seoul Express Bus Terminal serve Gangneung regularly. Journey time is roughly two and a half to three hours depending on traffic, and the highway route along the mountain passes can be scenic. Bus travel tends to be slightly cheaper than the KTX but significantly slower.

Getting Around the City

Within Gangneung, the public bus network covers most major destinations including the Olympic Park, Gyeongpo Beach, Anmok, Chodang, and Ojukheon. The network is functional but routes can be confusing without Korean language skills — using the Kakao Maps app (which displays real-time bus information in English) is genuinely essential for navigating local transit effectively.

Taxis are readily available, reasonably priced by international standards, and most can be hailed through the Kakao T app, which supports credit card payment and displays estimated fares in advance. For the Olympic Park area specifically, a dedicated shuttle bus runs between Gangneung Station and the park, which is useful given the park’s distance from the city center.

Cycling is a practical option for exploring the coastal areas — the Gyeongpo Lake path and the stretch toward Anmok Beach are flat and well-paved. Rental bikes are available near the lake and at various points along the coast.

When to Visit and What to Pack

Gangneung has a genuine four-season climate with distinct personalities in each, and unlike some destinations, no single season dominates as the obvious choice — the right time to visit depends entirely on what you’re after.

Winter (December to February)

This is the season that makes most geographic sense for the Olympic venue experiences. The ice rinks are in full operation, the Oval’s long-track skating is available, and the landscape — particularly the pine-forested coast under snow — is dramatically beautiful. Temperatures drop well below freezing, particularly at night, and the coastal wind along the East Sea has real bite. Layering is essential, and thermal underlayers are not optional — they’re necessary. The upside is that the arenas and the ski slopes at nearby Yongpyong (the alpine venue from the 2018 Games, about an hour away) are at their liveliest.

Spring (March to May)

Spring brings cherry blossoms to Gyeongpo Lake in early April, creating a genuinely spectacular scene where the blossoms reflect in the calm water alongside the traditional pavilion. The ice venues are still operational through much of spring, but hiking in Seoraksan and Odaesan becomes excellent as snow retreats from the lower elevations. This is one of the most comfortable seasons to visit.

Summer (June to August)

Gyeongpo Beach fills with Korean summer vacationers in July and August, and accommodation prices spike accordingly. The city is crowded and energetic, the seafood markets are at their most active, and the café culture along Anmok Beach reaches peak atmosphere. The Olympic venues are less central to the summer experience, though the park’s outdoor spaces and the museum remain worth visiting. Humidity is lower than Seoul, and the East Sea provides a cooling breeze that makes Gangneung’s summer heat more bearable than the inland alternative.

Autumn (September to November)

Many experienced Korean travelers consider autumn the ideal season for this part of the country. The foliage in Seoraksan and Odaesan typically peaks in mid to late October, and the coastal weather settles into clear, cool days that are perfect for beach walking and outdoor exploration. Crowds thin after the Chuseok holiday in late September or early October, and the combination of brilliant foliage, excellent seafood, and comfortable temperatures makes a compelling case for this as the peak visiting period.

Regardless of season, comfortable walking shoes are more important than most visitors anticipate — the Olympic Park involves more distance between venues than it looks on a map, and the coastal paths reward unhurried exploration on foot. A portable charger is useful given the reliance on Kakao Maps for navigation, and a basic Korean phrasebook or translation app will smooth interactions in the local markets and smaller restaurants where English is genuinely limited.

Explore more
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📷 Featured image by Jenny Kim on Unsplash.