Geoje Prisoner of War (POW) camp was built to hold prisoners during the Korean War. Today you can ride a Monorail from the POW camp to the mountaintop (Gyerongsan Mountain) for an amazing view!
Prisoner of War during the Korean war (1950) was located here in Geoje Island (Koje Do) in what is now Gohyeon city (downtown of Goeje Island).
Address: Historic Park of Geoje, P.O.W. Camp (거제도 포로수용소유적공원)
📍61, Gyeryong-ro, Geoje-si, Gyeongsangnam-do
🕓 9:00-18:00 (Mar-Oct)
9:00-17:00 (Nov-Feb)
The monorail (거제 모노레일) which just opened in 2018 at the POW camp, takes you up to the mountaintop, it’s 3.6km long, ~25 mins ride per leg. The admission fee is about $12 for a round trip.
The POW camp was build during the Korean War (1950), the Camp was closed after signing the ceasefire agreement in 1953. The POW camp exhibition was build and started to open for the public in 1999.
(Ref: http://www.pow.or.kr/_sub06/sub06_02.html)
Today they sell tickets for the POW camp and Monorail separately. But if you are there on a not so busy day (like the weekend), you can do them both. Tickets for the Monorail are available to reserve online at http://www.pow.or.kr/_sub07/powt.html?GoodsCode=18004830#
*Mae-jin = Sold Out
Today, we visited only the POW camp because the monorail tickets were sold out at 4.30 pm on Sunday. Summer in Geoje island was packed, so it wasn’t a good idea to do this on the weekend and without the reservations!
Parking in POW Camp is a flat rate, $2000won per car. You can pay with your credit card.
The ticket office is next to the flags and monument on the same level as the parking area. .
At the ticket office if you want to visit the POW camp, take the blue line to purchase the tickets. And if you want to ride the monorail, take the red line to get those tickets.
There are 3 options in the ticket office! No.1(left) for the ticket to visit POW camp only, No.2(middle) for the ticket for visiting both POW camp and Monorail and No.3(right) ticket for Monorail only.
But if the monorail is sold out, there will be only one option to just visit POW camp like us today…
The POW Camp is 7000won each (~$6-$7 per person), after we bought the POW camp tickets we were provided a map and info in English.
As you enter you can turn left for the POW camp or right for the Monorail (if you have a ticket!).
NOTE: if you buy both tickets for POW Camp (Left) and Monorail (Right), then you can take either way to access, it depends on what you want to do first, they are connected inside. But for us, we would like to do the POW camp first and then the Monorail because the monorail station is closer to the exit gate.
As you enter the POW camp there is a booth to check your tickets and you can see the first exhibitions “TANK EXHIBITION”
There is more Korean language use inside the Camp than English. But most of the main signs have descriptions in both.
After visiting the Tank Exhibition you’ll have two options: The blue letters direct you to an “Elevator” (best choice!), the Orange letter “Stairs”.
Then you will walk and walk thru the Camps from one exhibition to another.
There is a Zipline, it’s another 15,000won more if you want to try…
6.25 – History of the Korean War, this number “6.25” (June 25th, 1950) is the date of the war started.
I think we visited there at the right time during summer after 5 pm wasn’t too hot or humid to walk around the camp.
*Photo Zone in POW camp
Some of the statues that they displayed about the camp look like Zombies from Last Train to Busan Movie for me…
The Geoje POW camp had a total of 170,000 prisoners of war, 20,000 were from China, and 150,000 were from North Korea.
*North Korean and Chinese Communist prisoners
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner-of-war_camp
There were about 550 women prisoners, most of them were medics from North Korea.
*POW Camp shows respect to women prisoners of war…
After the war ended, many North Korea Prisoners had to make the decision to go back to their country or not. It was a hard decision for some of them, guess they didn’t want to go back but they still missed the family back there!
There is so much interesting information to read throughout the POW Camp in Geoje.
It’s easy to walk thru all the exhibitions thru the camp, we didn’t have to use the map at all.
*POW Camp Restroom!!!
This is also connected to the fun park and the monorail station.
The fun park seems to be good enough for family travels with small kids.
There is also a food court over here right next to the monorail station.
This is what I mentioned if you have monorail tickets, you can walk from POW camp to the station here.
*Monorail Station
*Food Court in POW Camp
BUT WE DON’T HAVE TICKET FOR MONORAIL TODAY – Let’s do the monorail on another day (because we’ll live here for the next 2 years!!!)
We walked out of the camp around 6 pm and they were getting finished for the day (starting to close up).
Even the fountain was stopped when we walked back for a picture in front of the POW camp!
Continueing to read Geoje Monorail
Read more about our trip in Geoje Island: https://www.somethingjam.com/south-korea/geoje-island-south-korea
