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Critique My Travel Plan Please

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A few pieces of info-first time in Ireland for me (native to the US) but not others who will be with me, trip will be end of October/early Nov and we will be driving. I know I have roughly 8-ish hours of daylight and that the weather may change some of these plans. I am also an avid photograph taker/love all things nature and outdoors and I adore roadtrips! My rough sketch of a plan:

Day 1-Explore Dublin and spend night there.
Day 2-Take Military Road through Wicklow Mountains-maybe a short-ish hike somewhere (any advice would be great-most bang for the buck options) and end up in Kilkenny for night.
Day 3-Explore a bit of Kilkenny (how long is enough to get good feel?) and possibly head to Blarney Castle for short stop there. If Ring of Kerry is next destination, should I go ahead and drive to Killarney? Would be staying there for several days.
Day 4-Ring of Kerry and return to Killarney for night
Day 5-Dingle peninsula then back to Killarney or another close spot for night (I really want to work Kerry Dark Sky into the mix that night somehow to attempt some pics of stars, etc...)
Day 6-Drive up through Adare, see Bunratty Castle and anything else fun in area and possibly quick stop at Moher Cliffs then maybe to Galway to spend night (too far?)
Day 7-Explore Galway and spend night
Day 8-head back to Dublin to fly back to US (flight at like 3pm)

Thoughts? Suggestions? I am open to all :) This is spur of the moment trip so trying to get something pulled together fairly quickly...makes me a little panicky inside.

Laura

Posted by
1 posts

I will be interested to see what response you get. We are doing almost the same trip in mid to late Sept, just going the opposite direction. I've been struggling with the car rental decisions. I hope you get some responses that help.

Posted by
1172 posts

You are going to get all kinds of answers depending on travel style... to me, you are trying to cover way touch in 7 days
We did a very similar circuit last year and had 14 days and we had to skip some things.

Assuming that you are flying on the red eye, day 1 will most likely be a bit of a write off between which means that you will have next to no time to really see Dublin. For some that is fine. I love Dublin so I would want more time.
Kilkenny was a pretty quick visit for us. I would say half a day is enough but with shorter days though, I would not recommend doing Kilkenny, Blarney and then making your way to Killarney. That is a lot in one day.
Instead of returning to Killarney, I would drive the Ring of kerry and then either go to Dingle of the night or stop somewhere along the way
You can go from Dingle to Galway and stop at the Cliffs in one day but you may not have time to also do Bunratty

I would aim to sleep in Dublin or outside Dublin the night before your flight. You should be at the airport 3 hours before your flight

Your itinerary leaves you next to no time to just wander and explore which is the best part of travelling to Ireland in my opinion.

Posted by
4 posts

Thank you for the info-I know it would be pushing it but I am not sure what I can cut out. Where would you guys suggest spending the most time? Any favorite areas? I originally thought about giving us another day around ROK/Dingle Peninsula but I would love to hear all suggestions you may have.

Posted by
248 posts

You will be rushed to get all this in. I would definitely not go back to Killarney but stay in Dingle several nights if you can. Killarney is very crowded, filled with tour groups. Dingle is our very favorite place in Ireland. A great place to relax, listen to the music and enjoy the delightful Irish people. Any chance you could fly into Dublin and out of Shannon to save some time. Whatever you decide I'm sure you will enjoy Ireland.

Posted by
4 posts

Rosemary-I have changed my plans and taking your advice. Spending one night somewhere along ROK near dark sky reserve and one night (maybe two) in Dingle :) It looks like my kind of place!

Posted by
409 posts

Laura,

I see you're going to KilKenny. I recently spent 4 days in County Kilkenny and discovered a new museum only open a month or so - the Fethard Horse Experience. It's newly created and funded by Andrew Lloyd Weber and others. It's about horses in the area, as well as history of Roman times and more. I was impressed by Fethard and would stay in that small village next time. Kilkenny Castle was amazing! But very crowded, too....

We stayed in Graignamanna/Craidnamanna at the old mill turned into a small hotel. Highly recommend that small town as a place to stay, as well!

Overall your tour looks quite ambitious with lots of driving. Keep in mind if Google maps says 60 minutes it could be 90 minutes or more. The maps are run by speed limits on the roads, and really - you won't drive the speed limit on most of the roads! (There's a one lane bridge near me that has an 80kph speed limit!).

Best of luck!

Susan
in Waterville

Posted by
4 posts

Thanks for the info on the museum! I think after day 2 we are just going to play by ear and keep a looser schedule. That way if something catches our eye, we can spend more time there. I have heard that about drive times so we figured we would have to make a few sacrifices to things on the list. I considered taking Galway out of the equation all together to give us essentially another day to spend elsewhere along the way. :)

Posted by
269 posts

Since you mentioned the Kerry Dark Sky, you may want to stay near Portmagee which is about half way through the ROK drive. It's a small town with several nice restaurants and the Skellig Museum is on nearby Valentia Island (joined by a causeway). I stayed in a really nice AirBnB place a few miles outside of Portmagee, and it was pleasant being out in the countryside. You should get some good views of the night sky in that area.

Raymond

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