Gwangmyeong Cave: Miracle of an Abandoned Mine

8 min readAug 16, 2019

Instead of a typical cave tour looking at stalactites and rocks, South Korea has flipped the idea and made caves to be a center of attraction. As a result, themed caves are becoming increasingly popular around the country. The biggest and best is Gwangmyeong Cave. Located 15 minutes away from Seoul Station, this hidden gem is not known to many visitors to Korea and is the largest themed cave park in the country.

Gwangmyeong Cave has centuries of history as a gold and silver mine in 1912 and is now a cave-themed park that has elements of culture and art that draws tourists from all over Korea. Many experts agree that there is still a large sum of gold still buried inside the cave waiting to be found.

How to get to Gwangmyeong Cave from Seoul

The easiest way to get to Gwangmyeong Cave is to take a train from Seoul Station to Gwangmyeong Station which will take 15 minutes and cost around 5,000 KRW. When you arrive at Gwangmyeong Station head to exit 8 and take the #17 bus, which will take you all the way to the Cave system for 1,250 KRW. To get back to the station just take the #17 bus again.

Look for this sign at exit 8. Take the #17 bus.

Gwangmyeong Cave

Aixia and her friends are the mascots of the cave.

When you reach the bus stop at Gwangmyeong Cave, you will have to hike up some stairs to get to the caverns. There are multiple places to purchase your ticket when you make your way to the cave and it costs 6,000 KRW for an adult ticket. On the way to the entrance, there is an area where multiple vendors are selling food, an area to cool down outside of the cave and even a small stream where you can put your feet in.

When you reach the entrance of the cave one of the coolest things you will notice is how cold the front gets. On a hot day a walk into Gwangmyeong Cave is great because the cave is so cold, it feels like the whole place is being air conditioned.

Wormhole Square

When you first walk into Gwangmyeong cave and head down the tunnel, the first area you will see is Wormhole Square. Wormhole square is a meeting point that connects multiple tunnels and it always has a different themes, depending on the season. Since it is summer, there is a flower theme.

Space of Light

To the right of Wormhole Square is the space of light with multiple led works. One of the best areas to take a picture is the entrance to the light space where the cave walls are covered in color changing LEDS. After the tunnel you can see cool LED figures hanging from the caves and even some fish.

Cave Arts Center and Media Show

The Cave Arts Center is the first of its kind in Korea and opened in June of 2012. On certain days and festivals you can see all sorts of performances having to do with fashion, culture, or music. On regular days you can see the media show happening around the clock. The media show is a light show projected onto the entire cave wall and is such an eye opening and exciting experience. I was very impressed at how well the graphics look and the animations projected onto the entire cave.

Cave Aqua World

Cave Aqua World is a section of the cave dedicated to an aquarium. There are a medium amount of fish tanks and all sorts of fish that you can see within the tanks. One of the main features of this area is the small waterfall section housing local fish species.

Golden Road

The Golden Road was once the main area where gold, silver and copper were mined. Today, it is considered to be a road of long life, happiness, and peace and visitors can obtain these effects by walking down. A section of the road is dedicated to the purchase of gold plaques which can be bought and kept for a year within the cave. All of these plaques have written wishes of health, happiness, or wealth from optimistic visitors.

The Supernova of Wishes is made up of 4219 hold plaques with each containing the written wishes of visitors to Gwangmyeong Cave during 2015.

Golden Plaques filled with wishes of visitors.

The jaw dropping Golden Falls is a waterfall made by the flow of underground water. It has over 1.4 tons of water flowing through it per minute.

The Golden Palace is made up of 6 large gold columns and gold bars that the cave fairy Aixia holds.

The Golden Palace’s cave fairy Aixia has a treasure chest that stores the gold that may be hitting a rock. You can toss coins into the treasure chest so they can be used as a donation for the region.

Zombie Castle

For 3,000 KRW you can have a horror experience by taking part in the Zombie Castle. Visitors can test their bravery by walking through a pitch dark path that has spooky sound effects and other surprises.

If you choose to skip the zombie castle, you can see the caves underground lake ahead.

Lord of the Cave

Smaug and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings.

The lord of the cave is a sculpture made by a production company called Weta Workshop that depict the characters Smaug and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. In this section you will also see displays of fantasy artwork by various artists.

Going up the stairs

See another sculpture made from golden plaques

Original and destroyed part of the old mines foundation

Small museum dedicated to telling the history of the cave

Wine Cave

The wine cave is one of the highlights of Gwangmyeong Cave. It offers over 170 locally-produced wines and is the only South Korean winery with this much variety. The area is a long stretch of tunnel where visitors can have a small sample of wine, purchase a glass, or event a bottle.

An area where you can order drinks and food

If you exit the cave you will see this wine waterfall area.

What to do after visiting the Cave

If you go out the same entrance you came in from. You can head back down and grab something to eat at one of the vendors, visit the gift shop or take a break at many of the picnic benches available. Walking back down to the bus stop, there are two places nearby that you should visit.

Resource Recovery Facility

The Gwangmyeong Resource Recovery Facility near the Gwangmyeong Cave used to be a common garbage incinerator, but has been turned into a water treatment plant equipped with high-tech gadgets that reduce pollution and produce energy for the local area.

You can go into the resource facility and see how the process works, learn more about recycling and waste and more for free. It takes about five minutes.

Gwangmyeong Upcycle Arts Center

The waste collected from the Gwangmyeong Resource Recovery Facility is gathered and turned into art with help from artists. Their work is on display at the Upcycle arts center and you can even purchase some of their work.